(Prensa.com) Police officials yesterday said that Panama’s murder rate has been cut in half since 2009.Police Deputy Director Porfirio Justavino said there were 100 fewer homicides in 2010 than in 2009, and the murder rate has dipped so far this year to an average of 12 per 100,000 residents. In 2009, that rate was 24 per 100,000 residents.
Justavino said that the decrease is due to strategies developed by the police “to make the community feel more secure.”
He said that studies that took place when the crime rate was at its highest, in 2008 and 2009, showed that most of the violence was due to fighting between gangs to control drug trafficking.
Police said they have managed to effectively reduce the number of these killings, thus reducing the overall murder rate.