We could continue beating the escalating murder rate to death, but we must not forget the connected detection rate.

So much so that I felt obliged to write in last week’s column: “Noting the murder rate in 1990 was just 84 with a 69 per cent detection rate, why then did the murder rate rise significantly from 1,181 between 1990 and 2000 with an average detection rate of 64 per cent to a frightening 4,838 murders between 2010 and 2020 with an average detection rate of only 16 per cent?” (Source: TTPS.)

Why this troubling increase in murders and decrease in detection? Naturally, the conviction rates will even be much lower. What are the reliable explanations?

Data between 1990 and 2000 shows that at least 36 per cent of the “murderers” in that period went loose – undetected – with some possibly killing again. It got worse between 2010 and 2020. with 84 per cent of the “murderers” running loose.

What about the victims’ families? (Note, for example, in 2015, the published data shows 420 murders with only 57 (14 per cent) detected. This “detection” rate may well also include some murders from the year or years before 2015. However, the analysis within ten-year periods (eg. 2010-2020) helps smooth this variability.)

Our murder and detection rates need to be put in emergency mode. It is a mental health emergency. (A record 580 so far.) Clearly our police need help, plenty help from inside and outside, locally.

Two things here: (1) As the murder rate rapidly escalates, the pressures on the same investigative units and resources of the police service accordingly increase, thus leading to investigative inefficiency and delays. There is therefore need for rationalisation.

(2) Criticising the police service does present a dilemma. That is, while there is inside corruption and inefficiency, widespread criticisms of police officers tend to demoralise and have Peter paying for Paul. How then do we press for accountability and improved performance?

An early remedial intervention into this security dilemma is to find out where the lines of institutional responsibility lie and what role the police commissioner, minister, government policies, the Police Service Commission, etc, play. We need to find out.

I therefore asked: “Before 2006, police commissioners complained of having responsibility without the required authority. How come then the murder rates rose so significantly and the detection rates decrease so significantly after 2006 when the commissioner got, constitutionally, 'complete powers to appoint, manage and discipline' officers as well as becoming accounting officer?"

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In this murder-detection rate disconnect, I also asked: “How come such things continue to get worse after Parliament removed the PM's veto over the commissioner’s appointment? How efficiently and effectively has the constitutionally reformed Police Service Commission functioned in appointing a commissioner and in improving police management and performance afte