OCHO RIOS, St Ann — St Ann recorded 67 murders last year, 12 more than in 2021, but Senior Superintendent of Police Dwight Powell is convinced there will be a reduction in crime this year. His optimism is based on his belief in the combined effectiveness of a state of public emergency (SOE) declared in the parish in late December of last year, and new measures to be rolled out by his team this year.

“As the commanding officer I’m very optimistic as it relates to crime reduction for this year for St Ann. So I want to express commendations to the men and women I lead in this parish. I believe St Ann has some good officers that are committed to the task of ensuring that this parish remains a safe place,” he said.

Speaking during Thursday’s monthly meeting of the St Ann Municipal Corporation, Powell pointed out that there had been no murder recorded in the parish since the start of the year.

“Overall, since the start of this year, we are seeing some good statistics in terms of crime reduction and so if that should continue for the rest of the first quarter then we should be in a very good position. I must say I welcome the use of the SOE and all good people in the parish must appreciate the SOE because they did well for us in terms of crime reduction. I’m still enjoying some good period because of the SOE. I have to thank my JDF (Jamaica Defence Force) counterparts for the resources that they deployed over that period of time,” the lawman said.

Powell also spoke of his team’s effectiveness in collaring thieves.

“Last year we had a challenge with robberies but we mitigated that by putting in our quick response system. These are our police on bikes, with high-powered weapons, and they have countered the bike robberies,” he said, adding that this was one approach that will once again be utilised in 2023.

“We are hoping these strategies, coupled with new things, will see our parish in a better place than where we were last year,” he said.

One of the new initiatives will be more community involvement aimed at tackling domestic violence, which contributed to 24 of the 67 murders committed in the parish in 2022.

“The concern I have is with domestic-related conflicts. It seems that, as a parish, we are still not resolving our domestic issues well. We have looked on some mitigating measures and for this year one of the things that we will be pushing will be more community participation, stakeholders’ involvement to see how best we can seek to reduce those domestic related incidents,” said Powell.

“As a parish we need to find amicable ways to resolve our domestic-related issues,” he urged.

Also on his radar is gang-related violence which he said accounted for 14 murders last year. He did note, however that this figure paled in comparison to the statistics nationally.

“The murders related to gang violence were concentrated predominantly around the hot spots in the parish, which is not one of the big percentages because nationally speaking gang violence was of concern so we were spared in St Ann,” he explained.