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The 2008 has been a bloody years in Puerto Rico, where last weekend surpassed the 800 murders in the island, the highest figure since 1996, when it committed 868 of these crimes.

With some four million inhabitants, the Free Associated State to the U.S. are more than two murders every day until Sunday and police had reported 802, 80 more than for the same date in 2007.


According to authorities, about 80 percent of these murders are related to the flow of drugs.

Whereas until the middle of the 1990s occurred in the municipalities of metropolitan San Juan, Bayamon, Carolina, Guaynabo and southern Ponce, has since been observed throughout the island.


The trend itself is maintained over time is that the majority of victims are men between 20 and 30 years.

The number of murders had remained below 800 since 1996 were 868, in 1995 there were 864 in 1993 and 1994 and reached the highest figures of the past 50 years, with 954 and 995, respectively.


To try to remedy this situation, the Commission for the Prevention of Violence (COPREVI) of the University of Puerto Rico (UPR) is carrying out the campaign "Let us be instruments of peace" to "raise awareness about the importance of all assume an active role "to the problem.

Statistics, studies and research presented alarming figures from the harmful effects of violence, "said the rector of the compound Cayey (center) of the UPR, Ram S. Lamba, who said that "this campaign went from prevention to action."


The campaign COPREVI, civic entity created by executive order in 2004 with the view that violence is a public health problem that should be analyzed from an ecological perspective, "is a series of television and print ads that use the example to Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

"We are not only carrying a message of prevention. These ads are calling for action by using humans as models that have worked to improve the quality of life in their countries," Lamba said.


Others, although more local, which appear in the campaign are COPREVI Sister Isolina Ferre, who left a legacy of service to the needy in places that bear his name, and Jose Vargas Vidot, director of Community Initiative, " which provides services to marginalized sectors such as drug addicts and prostitutes. "

The campaign to call for peace include the call to wear a white shirt next January 19 as a show of support and the upcoming publication of a magazine dedicated to highlighting the efforts of individuals and companies that stand out as "builders of peace."


"We all have a responsibility to contribute to building peace. Therefore, we wanted to become the umbrella body of the efforts we are making various sectors to achieve our goal," said the director of COPREVI, Samuel Figueroa.

Meanwhile, the public view of the problem of violence begins to change and the Police Superintendent Pedro Toledo, acknowledges that it is not something that can be corrected simply by increasing the number of agents and said that an analysis must be "seriously" with the participation of all social sectors.


Ever encountered in Puerto Rico more voices calling for a revision of traditional purely punitive system against criminals.

The secretary of the Department of Correction and Rehabilitation of Puerto Rico, Miguel Pereira, has introduced a new program to combat addiction in prison based on the administration of methadone is having good results.


At the website COPREVI, www.coprevi.org, educational brochures are available to help resolve conflicts, reduce and prevent the anger from the family habits that can result in future situations of violence.

Also offered at this site lectures by experts who advocate preventive and rehabilitative and strictly legal question the police because, they say, violence is a public health problem that can be addressed from multiple angles.