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The Dominican Republic has the lowest homicide rate in the entire Caribbean for the second year in a row, according to InSight Crime’s annual report; the country closed 2025 with a rate of 8.7 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, the fourth consecutive year of decline, registered a drop of 8.9% compared to 2024, placing it in first place in the Caribbean.
- The contrast with the rest of the region is stark: the Caribbean recorded an average rate of 34.0 per 100,000 inhabitants.
InSight Crime is a foundation dedicated to the study and research of threats to national security and citizen security in Latin America and the Caribbean. These figures have been supported by weekly reports from the National Police and the Attorney General’s Office of the Dominican Republic, which consolidate a four-year trend of sustained decline in lethal violence in the country.
In the 2024 report, InSight Crime had documented the turning point: the Dominican Republic recorded a 16.4% drop in its homicide rate compared to 2023, marking the third consecutive year of decline. That finding was publicly cited by the Minister of Interior and Police, Faride Raful, as support for the results of the Joint Task Force. Weekly crime statistics reports from the National Police and the Joint Task Force show that the trend continues in 2026. As of June 12, 2026, the cumulative homicide rate stood at 7.05 per 100,000 inhabitants, the lowest level recorded for that period in recent years.
As for other crimes, robberies also show a marked reduction: when comparing January-February 2025 with the same period in 2026, a drop of 34.73% was recorded. Official data from April 2025 indicate that most of the country’s homicides originate from personal disputes and not from organized crime networks.
A historical look at the United Nations helps to situate the Dominican case within the Caribbean: the subregional decline in homicides in the Caribbean over the last decade is partly explained by a downward trend in more populous countries such as Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, while Haiti and Jamaica, have seen increases in lethal violence in recent years.
President Luis Abinader has used InSight Crime data to support his administration’s security strategy, attributing the result to the Joint Task Force, created in June 2023 to unify law enforcement, the judicial system, and other security agencies under data-driven strategies.
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