With 11 murders recorded already in The Bahamas for 2017, there are widespread concerns about crime, but Commissioner of Police Ellison Greenslade said yesterday that the majority of murder victims are people "involved in a life of crime", contrary to hearsay that criminals often target innocent people.

The 11 murders in the first 18 days of the year compare to five recorded up to this point last year. Despite these incidents, Greenslade told reporters at police headquarters that the country is not a "bad place".

"There are no phantoms in the country committing crime," Greenslade said.

"There are no serious offenders standing on street corners in the shadows waiting to pounce on innocent, unsuspecting Bahamians, residents or tourists.

"There is no truth to that. "The people that are killing each other are people that are living a life of crime.

"They are not employed; they are not looking for work, and they are not prepared to lead normal lives as we do, as properly socialized individuals in The Bahamas.

"They're going against the grain. "I do not want to mislead our country. "I am not prepared, as the commissioner of police, to take a blanket or carpet and drape it over the communities of The Bahamas and to simply call our people bad. That is not true. I stand against anyone who says it.

"There are hardworking, decent people that are relatives of some of these people that I've held up that do not support what they do and they're praying for them. Please, let us be careful, Bahamas.

"We can't throw the baby out with the bath water."

Greenslade called a press conference to announce police were looking for eight men for questioning in relation to murder.

Those men are Alfred Bastian, 27; Amal "Bow" Hunter, 29; Mario Deveaux, 46; Mark McKenzie, 25; Patrick Goffee, 33; Shawn "Fire" Brown, 27; Christopher "Deebo" Joseph, 25, and Anton "Banton" Wright, 34. Police said late last night that Wright turned himself in to police. Greenslade said recent murders have not been random.

"The feuds are over drugs, women and we are even seeing feuds over men where people set them up," he said. "That's real. At one point, we did not want to believe that these relationship issues were the cause of a lot of the anger and bitterness which sometimes lead to serious issues and death.

"People get emotionally involved, their world is owned by other people and they are responding in the wrong ways.

"When you have people, also, who are challenged in terms of their education and the ability to socialize properly, it is very difficult to ask them to make good decisions."

Greenslade assured that his team has the resources, manpower, experience and ability to tackle crime.

He noted that, in most cases, wanted people are often prolific offenders. He said the police force will continue to give the public "extremely good results" that it provided last year.

"We have targeted prolific offenders, arrested them, charged them, allowed due process and natural justice and take them before the courts," he said.

"We've done that very proficiently and will continue to do so." Police recorded 111 murders last year, a 24 percent decline from the 146 in 2015.

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