Just one month into the second quarter of 2017, The Bahamas is on pace to exceed the record 146 murders that occurred in 2015, according to a Guardian analysis.
There have been 51 murders for the year so far, according to authorities.
This represents a more than 13 percent increase in murders compared to the same period in 2015.
As of April 24, 2015, there were 45 murders.
The 51st murder was recorded yesterday morning.
A man was shot and killed on Third Street, Coconut Grove around 2:30 a.m.
Details were limited on the incident.
It was the fourth murder in five days.
On Sunday, a man on Grand Bahama was shot dead in an apartment complex on Amberjack Street around 11 p.m.
A man was shot dead on Saturday on Knowles Drive off Tonique Williams-Darling Highway on New Providence around 10 p.m.
Last Friday, two gunmen shot a man in his vehicle on Bola Alley and August Street and fled on foot.
The previous murder record was 127 in 2011.
As it stands, murders are outpacing 2016 by 24 percent.
This time last year, there were 41 murders nationwide.
Last year ended with 111 murders, down 23 percent, compared to the previous year.
Addressing a Yamacraw and Elizabeth Estates joint open branch meeting in February, Prime Minister Perry Christie said there is a "burning need to do more" regarding the issue of crime amid nationwide concern about the rapidly escalating crime rate.
At the time he made the comment, there were 28 murders, a 75 percent increase over the 16 murders recorded in the same period the previous year.
"When we came to office in 2012, crime was out of control, our court system was hopelessly behind in prosecuting criminals [and] Urban Renewal had been gutted," Christie said.
"We have reintroduced and strengthened Swift Justice; we have built new courts; added more capacity to address the backlog of cases; improved the ways cases are managed; added new protections for witnesses and we have double the rate of criminal convictions.
"We've established a tracking system for at-risk youth, created an anti-gang unit and added more than 300 police officers to the force. Those are only some of the changes we've made."
More recently, the government deployed defense force officers to assist the police in the fight against crime, a strategy National Security Minister Dr. Bernard Nottage said in March was paying dividends.
He indicated he was satisfied that crime will be brought down to an "irreducible level" if the government and law enforcement agencies "continue on the trend that we are on right now".
In the absence of crime statistics for the year, however, Nottage's assessment could not be independently verified.

Record
The prime minister has acknowledged that the electorate will judge the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) by its record on crime, a record that has been used against the PLP by opposition parties in the last few months.
There have been 620 murders under the PLP, which erected billboards that read: "Under the FNM government 490-plus murders" ahead of the last general election to highlight the FNM's record on crime.
Nottage has said the PLP does not plan to "tackle that issue at all".
"Crime is what it is," he said in March.
"It is not hidden. Everybody in The Bahamas knows, or has an experience of, the level of crime in the country.
"Our job is not to be competing about numbers, but to seek to reduce [it] to a irreducible minimum.
"Anybody who thinks that is easy is foolish.
"And so, we don't go chasing the numbers.
"What we do is we try to do our best to use our resources as best we can, and I'm finding that the way resources are being used now is producing the dividends that we had anticipated."
Between May 7 and December 31, 2012, there were 70 murders.
In 2013, there were 119 murders.
In 2014, there were 123 murders.

On the evening of May 10, 2017, provided all goes as expected, some 136 people of the 175 who nominated on April 20, 2017 will lose their bids to become members of Parliament in our Bahamian House of Assembly. Most will be disappointed; many may be angry; some will be embarrassed; and others, a precious few, will actually be relieved. Perhaps all will come to embrace Green Ingersoll's notion that "the greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart".
We always seem to know what to do about losing: you go home and lick your wounds, or you go home and contemplate how to get better to try again. Been there and done that. Winning, however, is a bit more complicated. You see, after the celebration, winners must come to terms with what comes next. After the win, the work begins, and it is at this point that three types of people emerge.
First, there is the person for whom winning was the goal. That person had the raw, naked ambition of simply getting there. This was an ego trip of the first order, intended to do nothing but scratch an itch of personal glory for its own sake. Being an MP, minister or prime minister was primary; serving the causes for which those offices exist was secondary. For this person, winning is the sport, and to lose is a fate worse than death. God help us if there be any such persons who number among the 39 on May 11, for it will not be long before the burden of their presence upon the public purse and the backs of the Bahamian people is felt.
Second, there are the well-intentioned candidates, for whom winning was a means to an end, and that end was service. Notwithstanding these winners' good intentions, however, they have failed the most basic of requirement for good service - that is, preparation for the work. These souls did not learn the nature or details of the craft for which they offered, and on the day of work will be ill prepared to contribute. Thus, while their burden upon the purse and the backs of the Bahamian people will be less than some colleagues before, there will be a burden nonetheless; because for them, a longer learning curve will be required. They have ignored Abraham Lincoln's missive, "I will prepare and someday my chance will come." Instead their reality is that their chance will come and meet them woefully unprepared.
Third, there are the prepared winners. On May 11, they will be the ones eager to get to their assignments because they are clear-eyed and clear-minded. They know what lies ahead. They have no delusions about the effort needed to promote progress, and they know that in many instances, progress will be, at best, only incremental. They will be optimistic because they made themselves ready with thoughts, plans and strategies fit for the moment. They will be conscious of the varying forces that gave rise to the problems confronting them and the countervailing forces necessary to solve them. Bumbling and fumbling will not be the order of the day for them; no, effectiveness and efficiency will be their standard. Mistakes may be made; this is the nature of human effort, but these will be occasions for great learning for the prepared winners. God help us to have an abundance of candidates from this category on May 11.
As sure as night follows day, there will be some souls who take winning as vindication of all that they have been and are about. They will oversimplify the meaning of their victory and translate it into some personal stroke of genius. Maybe it is so, but to miss the varied set of circumstances, some so miniscule as to escape sight, may be to jeopardize the success that their victory was gained to produce. If the victory becomes about the victors and not the people who gave it to them, it will result in the same mistakes that have been made by too many Bahamian administrations of the past. It will not be long before they find themselves facing defeat, delivered by the same people who gave the present victory.
The wise victors will embrace victory as a gift, rather than vindication. These winners will make the kind of difference the country needs, and I pray to God that many of them are elected on May 11. Are there many of them in the running? We shall see, and time will surely tell.

o Zhivargo Laing is a Bahamian economic consultant and former Cabinet minister who represented the Marco City constituency in the House of Assembly.

A NEW trial date in 2018 has been fixed for a man concerning an incident of attempted rape in 2013.

PROGRESSIVE Liberal Party Long Island candidate Glendon Rolle yesterday denied recent claims by Official Opposition Leader Loretta Butler-Turner that he and the PLP have "hand picked" nearly 30 people out of the constituency for new employment opportunities in an attempt to attract support on the island.