MONTEGO BAY, St James — Buoyed by a reduction in murders, Mayor of Montego Bay Councillor Richard Vernon is optimistic that St James will soon lose its unwelcome reputation of being the country’s bloodiest police division.

“I believe eventually we will reach that level where we can safely say that Montego Bay and St James is one of the safest municipalities and safest cities, not just in the Caribbean but globally,” Vernon told the Jamaica Observer on Wednesday as he expounded on comments he made a day earlier during the parish’s Independence Civic Ceremony.

“In 2023 from January 1 to August 3rd, murders for St James were 124. For the same period this year, it is 82, a 34 per cent reduction. This is a testament to progress and safety of our municipality,” he had said then.

Of the 1,393 murders in Jamaica last year St James accounted for 187, a full 70 more than the Westmoreland police division. Since April there has been a welcome decline in murders in St James which has been under several states of public emergency as the authorities tried to stem the bloodletting.

Vernon is hoping this downward movement in the numbers will continue.

“For now we are trending in the right direction; good things are happening,” he said.

The mayor praised those playing an active role in the effort to reduce crime in the parish, particularly members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF).

“It is important that we note when these significant reductions occur and give credit where it’s due because the police in St James have been working,” said Vernon.

“They have been deploying their resources strategically and in the end are yielding the results of the respective operations. We have to give credit. It’s often said we have to partner to get these results and that is what the police have been doing,” he continued.

The mayor told the Observer that the police have been “110 per cent behind” their combined effort to restore public order.

“Therefore, I’m not surprised that we are seeing a downward trend in serious crimes because we often maintain that it is the smaller things that usually escalate into the larger ones. We are trying to manage the smaller things through the public order measures and we are also seeing positive impact where the major crimes are concerned,” said Vernon.

“We can’t get carried away by the raw figures, there are other soft qualitative things we have to consider and that speaks to the further work that must be done in psychosocial intervention, in social intervention, in terms of ensuring we get our youth attached to positive organisations rather than the negative organisations,” added Vernon as he called on the wider society to play its part in helping to curb crime so that everyone can be safe.

“We have to work together, we have to continue to share information,” the mayor said.

He also noted that any effort to make St James safer will have to include an analytical look at the root cause of crime.

“We have to continue to understand the stimulant behind crime and provide the solutions at that level rather to react to a shooting, react to a spike,” said Vernon.

“We must understand the nature of the criminal activity whether it be systematic or systemic and address it from that level. Once we have mastered that, then we will be able to successfully bring it to a level where we can say this is the safest place,” added Vernon.