Tourism, Security and Safety From Theory to Practice

Island Crime Patterns
It is clear that there is a different threat to island tourism other than natural
amenity destruction and loss of cultural capital. Serious crime rates have risen in
the region since 1970 in tandem with the globalization of Caribbean tourism and
the rise of the region as a node in the global drug trade. Some trends illustrate this
danger. Since 1970 there have been “significant increases in the rate of violent
crimes in every Caribbean country for which data is available” (Harriott, 2002,
p. 4). The most dramatic increases have involved theft/robbery, homicide, and
serious assault, “. . . precisely the crimes associated with drugs” (Griffith, 2003,
p. 394). Islands that have experienced either acceleration or high levels of such
criminality tend to be both highly tourism penetrated and major destinations for
narco traffic: Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and the US
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Virgin Islands (USVI). In the special case of Jamaica, according to Harriott
(2003), the growth of the narcoeconomy since 1980 has been associated with a
rapid escalation in murder, the shift from dominantly property to dominantly vio-
lent crime, increasing gang warfare, multiple murders, and the killing of innocent
bystanders.
Elsewhere, patterns have been similar. Since 1970 murder and rape rates have
risen 50% in the USVI while robbery has tripled (de Albuquerque and McElroy,
1999b). Between 1985 and 1996, robbery rates doubled in Barbados and rape rates
doubled in St. Kitts-Nevis. Similar sharp increases have been recorded for burglary
and larceny over the same period for Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, and St. Kitts-
Nevis (de Albuquerque and McElroy, 1999b). The presence of visitors also seems
to be implicated in rising island crime. Similar to the experience of Hawaii
(Chesney-Lind and Lind, 1986; Fuji and Mak, 1980), a case study of Barbados
(de Albuquerque and McElroy, 1999a) revealed that visitors were much more vul-
nerable to property crime: triple the resident rate for robbery and for larceny.
Residents were much more likely to be victims of violent crime: murder, rape, and
major assault. These regional crime trends have also been associated with rising
levels of drug addiction and a sharp increase in juvenile offenders. On the other
hand, Harriott (2002) notes Caribbean rates are highly volatile and have shown
some declines very recently, although this may be partly due to increased under-
reporting. In developing countries worldwide, only 50% of serious crimes are
reported (Alvazzi del Frate, 2000).
The expanding literature on the determinants of crime in LDCs suggests that
development is positively associated with property crime (notably theft). Various
explanations are proffered, including Durkheim’s 
anomie
theory, which posits that
rapid societal change produces new forms of wealth and the breakdown of tradi-
tional moral norms (Leggett, 2000). A variant, the subculture of violence, is based
on blocked opportunity for marginalized urban youth who resort to criminality to
survive. An increasingly important formulation is the opportunity cost or Chicago
school model associated with the work of Becker (1968). It argues that develop-
ment alters the benefit cost calculus of traditionally illicit activity. The combina-
tion of new wealth and the anonymity afforded by rural to urban migration
produces rising benefits for crime and falling costs of detection/incarceration. This
model seems especially suitable for the Caribbean, which has undergone a major
postwar restructuring towards mass tourism. Visitors present lucrative targets
because they tend to carry much portable wealth, ignore normal precautions, are
unfamiliar with their surroundings, and are less likely to report crimes, correctly
identify assailants, or return as witnesses at trial.
Caribbean research has suggested many of these same determinants.
De Albuquerque and McElroy (1999b) have emphasized the link between the pres-
ence of visitors and property crime. In the same context, King (1997, p. 34) has
touted relative deprivation, that is, the “sense of entitlement” among disenfran-
chised youth “because Americans have so much.” Headley (1996) has stressed
blocked opportunity and argued for the drug-and-guns subculture of violence.
Bonnick (1994) believes a major conditioning variable is the bad guy image, so
appealing to marginalized youth, portrayed by powerful American cinema and tel-
evision in this most mass media penetrated subregion in the world. Robotham
(2003) emphasizes the rising proportion of youth in the population and their falling
labor force participation because of a failing macroeconomy. Finally, Rushton
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and Whitney (2002) have implicated rooted cultural values and family cultures as
criminogenic in both African and Black Caribbean societies. However, rigorous
empirical testing of these theories has been either lacking or inconclusive perhaps
partly because of the imperfect quality/quantity of the data, the complexity of the
crime phenomenon (Harriott, 2002), and/or the clandestine operation of an expanding
narcoeconomy (Forst and Bennett, 1998).
This last conclusion is based on the following evidence: (1) police reports across
the Caribbean that most serious crimes are drug-related (de Albuquerque, 1996a);
(2) a noticeable change in the pattern of violent crime from domestic disputes to
gang feuds and robbery (Harriott, 2003); (3) the increasing use of firearms
(Harriott, 2002); (4) the increasing role of hard-core marginalized youthful offend-
ers (Harriott, 1996); (5) the increasing number of apprehended perpetrators who are
addicts (de Albuquerque and McElroy, 1999b); (6) the rising prominence of home-
grown posses in organized crime; and (7) the increasing menace of returning felons
deported from the United States and elsewhere (8,000 between 1993 and 2000; see
Griffith, 2003) who are known to be engaged in narcotics and firearms importation.