Date: March 5, 2024

To order the Department of Education to create the student profile with double exception and to carry out a census of these students, in order to make this population visible and lay the foundations for the creation of future and specific public policy for the benefit of these people.

Date: March 3, 2025

To create the “Law for the Recovery of Domestic Animals” for the purpose of establishing a uniform procedure that facilitates and legitimizes the recovery of lost and found domestic animals; add a new paragraph (8) to Article 6 of Law No. 36 of May 30, 1984, as amended, for the purpose of creating a website managed by the State Animal Control Office (OECA), attached to the Department of Health, under the Environmental Health Program, where photographs of animals will be published for the purpose of complying with provided for in this Act and for other related purposes.

Dates: March 3, 2025

To create the “Act on the Registration of Older Adults Living Alone and Bedridden Persons”; to provide for its implementation and purposes; and for other related purposes.

They request collaboration to complete a survey on parenting experiences

ESCAPE and the Puerto Rico Statistics Institute join efforts to develop the First Survey on the Parenting Experience in Puerto Rico

San Juan, Puerto Rico — February 27, 2025. ESCAPE, Center for Family Strengthening, in collaboration with the Puerto Rico Statistics Institute (Institute), are developing the Survey on the Parenting Experience in Puerto Rico. This initiative seeks to gather valuable information about the experiences of mothers, fathers and guardians (people who are responsible for the upbringing of children) with the objective of strengthening efforts for the prevention of child abuse and developing more effective programs to serve families according to their needs

The executive director of ESCAPE, Yadira Pizarro Quiles, requested citizen collaboration by completing and sharing a survey and highlighted the importance of this tool for designing more precise, relevant and relevant intervention strategies. “Every family in Puerto Rico faces unique challenges, and with this survey we will be able to better understand their realities. The data collected will allow us to evaluate existing programs and develop more effective initiatives to support parents and caregivers in parenting, thus strengthening efforts to prevent child abuse,” said Pizarro.

Participation in the Puerto Rico Parenting Experience Survey is completely voluntary and is intended for those who are responsible for raising one or more children under 18 years of age in Puerto Rico. The questionnaire, which lasts approximately 20 to 30 minutes, guarantees the confidentiality of the answers, which will be anonymous and securely stored by the Institute.

The questionnaire is structured in seven sections: Sociodemographic data of the child, Experiences and Expectations, Discipline and Communication, Technology and Quality Time, Support Needs and Future, Socio-Demographic Data on the Respondent and a Closure and Feedback.

The executive director of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics, Dr. Orville M. Disdier, highlighted the value of data and statistics in the formulation of prevention strategies. “Access to up-to-date and reliable information is key to making informed decisions. With this survey, we will be able to generate data that will not only help us better understand the dynamics of parenting in Puerto Rico, but also serve as a basis for the creation of public policies that reinforce the protection and well-being of children. That's why it's important to have the support of all sectors helping to share and complete this survey,” he said.

The survey can be accessed at the following link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/crianzamenores

To coordinate collaborative efforts, you can contact Mrs. Lourdes Burgos at 787-562-2932.

###

Contact: Lourdes Burgos, R-27 - Cell. 787-562-2932

About ESCAPE:

ESCAPE, Family Strengthening Center, was the first non-profit organization created on the Island (1983) with the mission of preventing child abuse. The organization is dedicated to supporting and educating families, parents and the community in general about healthy and positive ways to relate, communicate and above all to raise, care for and protect children and adolescents from violence and abuse.

About the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics

The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute is an autonomous governmental entity responsible for coordinating the Government's statistical production service to ensure that the data collection and statistics systems, on which public policies are based, are complete, reliable, and have quick and universal access.

‍

Date: February 12, 2025

To amend paragraph (f) of Act No. 209 of August 28, 2003, as amended, known as the “Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics Act”, so that all agencies, corporations and instruments of the Government of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico are required to send within sixty (60) days to the Institute any publication of statistical reports they produce, in order to be incorporated into the Puerto Rico Statistics Inventory; and for other related purposes.

Data presented from the Report on Violent Deaths in Puerto Rico

598 homicides and 190 suicides were reported in Puerto Rico in 2022

The Puerto Rico Violent Death Notification System (PRVDRS, in English) established at the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics, presented data from the Puerto Rico Violent Deaths Report for the year 2022. The report reports that in 2022, there were 727 incidents of violent deaths, with a total of 809 fatalities. Of the total number of violent deaths, 598 were homicides and 190 were suicides, representing 97.4% of violent deaths.

In 2022, 73.9% of victims of violent deaths were reported in single or multiple homicide incidents and 23.5% were suicide incidents. Seven homicide-suicide incidents were reported, resulting in 14 fatalities. In addition, 6 violent deaths attributed to legal intervention (0.7%), four violent deaths from unintentional self-inflicted firearms (0.5%) and 11 violent deaths with undetermined intent (1.4%) were documented during this period. In 2022, approximately 9 out of 10 victims of violent deaths (89.6%) were men. The crude rate of violent deaths for Puerto Rico in 2022 was 25.1 per 100,000 inhabitants, 47.6 in men and 4.9 in women.

Of the 809 violent deaths recorded in 2022, 598 were homicides (73.9%). The majority of homicides occurred between the ages of 15 and 39. In these age groups, 73.2% of all homicides occurred among men and 66.0% among women. The primary mechanism of the homicides was firearms. In Puerto Rico, 93.6% of homicides were committed with firearms. Globally, firearm homicides account for 69.5%.

In 2022, nearly half of the homicides occurred in an environment of collective violence. 255 of the 598 homicides (42.6%) registered in 2022 occurred in a context related to criminal groups involved in the trafficking of illegal drugs.

In 2022, 28 fatal victims of family violence were reported. Family violence (violence between family members) includes child or adult abuse and violence against an intimate partner. Most of these cases were related to violence in an intimate or former partner environment (13 cases, 67.9%). There were 9 fatal incidents among family members (32.1%). The vast majority of victims of intimate partner violence were women (n= 13, 68.4%). More than half of these women were victims of their former spouse or former male partner (61.5%), while 30.8% were victims of their current spouse or partner. In addition, a firearm was used in 10 of the 13 femicides/femicides (76.9%).

As for suicides in Puerto Rico, the report highlights that the frequency is lower than that of homicides. However, as in homicides, suicides are more frequent in men (85.5%). In 2022, the crude suicide rate was 5.9 per 100,000 inhabitants, 10.6 in men (1 of 145 men) and 1.6 in women (1 of 788 women). The main mechanism was asphyxiation (62.3% in men and 53.6% in women).

The collection of this type of data involves fieldwork that usually takes more than two years, from the time the incident occurs until the collection, review and publication of the data is completed. Mariluz Bezares Salinas, Manager of Statistical Projects at the Institute of Statistics and co-principal investigator of the Report on Violent Deaths in Puerto Rico, said: “This report not only reflects the magnitude of violent deaths in Puerto Rico, but it also provides a detailed overview of the circumstances and factors associated with the occurrence of violent deaths. This information is crucial for guiding public policy decisions and designing interventions that save lives and promote safer communities.”

“This violent death reporting system is a reliable, complete and unique reference source that helps describe vital information about the circumstances surrounding violent deaths in Puerto Rico. This data is essential for government agencies and community organizations to implement evidence-based prevention programs,” said Dr. Diego Zavala, epidemiologist and co-principal investigator of the PRVDRS.

For the Executive Director of the Puerto Rico Institute of Statistics, Dr. Orville M. Disdier, the Puerto Rico Violent Death Notification System has been and is fundamental to understanding the magnitude and characteristics of this public health problem. “Data from 2022 allow us to identify crucial patterns and trends to develop more effective and efficient prevention strategies. Our commitment at the Institute of Statistics is to continue strengthening this statistical and epidemiological system to continue to have statistics, complete, reliable and quickly and universally accessible, on this topic,” argued Dr. Disdier.

The PRVDRS is an epidemiological surveillance system affiliated with the Institute of Statistics and designed to obtain a complete and standardized census of violent deaths in Puerto Rico. The PRVDRS began its participation in the National Violent Death Notification System (National Violent Death Reporting System, NVDRS) in September 2016 through a collaborative agreement granted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

The Puerto Rico Statistics Institute is an autonomous governmental entity tasked with coordinating the government's statistical production service to ensure that the data collection and statistics systems, on which public policies are based, are complete, reliable, and accessible quickly and universally.

The 2022 Report on Violent Deaths in Puerto Rico is available at: Puerto Rico Violent Death Notification System. To learn about the Institute of Statistics, you can access it on social networks through Facebook (@estadisticas .pr), X (formerly Twitter) (@EstadisticasPR) and LinkedIn (Institute of Statistics of Puerto Rico) accounts.

‍