Area Four police say they are seeing a significant decrease in major crimes compared to last year.

Area Four, which includes the Kingston eastern, western and central, and St Andrew south and central divisions, has, so far, seen a 30 per cent drop in murders compared to the same period last year.

Eighty-five murders have been recorded across all the divisions this year, 37 less than the 122 which occurred over the corresponding period of 2024.

Head of Area Four, Assistant Commissioner Michael Phipps, said they are seeing a 30 per cent reduction in all categories of major crimes for this year.

“So far this year, we have had a total of 386 reported category one crimes, when compared to 553 for a similar period of 2024. This is suggesting that we have 167 fewer reported category one crimes,” ACP Phipps shared.

“The crime-fighting efforts have given us very good results across all divisions, and I am really grateful to the team. I want to use this medium to commend the men and women of all divisions within Area Four for the very good performance resulting from their efforts,” he added.

The data showed that Kingston Central had recorded seven murders when compared to 13 for the corresponding period of 2024 – a 46 per cent reduction. Kingston Eastern has eight murders compared to 25 this time last year – 68 per cent less.

St Andrew Central has a 42 per cent reduction, having reported 15 murders this year compared to 26 during that time in 2024. Kingston Western has recorded 19 murders compared to 21 for the corresponding period of 2024. This is a 10 percent reduction.

St Andrew, which is one of the toughest divisions in Jamaica, so far this year has 36 murders compared to 37 for the same period last year. This showed a three percent reduction in murders in the division.

“As an Area, we are seeing where our investigative efforts have been giving us some very good results, and this has shown a very high clearance rate in regards to our murders, where at this time we are having a 78 per cent clearance rate for our murders,” the assistant commissioner revealed.

In terms of guns and ammunition recovery, some 215 firearms have been recovered across all the divisions, with St. Andrew South accounting for 105 and Kingston Western accounting for another 71.

“If you compare that to where we were this time last year, you would have seen where we have 82 more recovered firearms across the Area, in that in 2024, we had a total of 133 recovered firearms,” said ACP Phipps.

In terms of ammunition recovery, this time last year, Area Four recovered 1919 assorted ammunition. So far this year, they have recovered 6633, an increase of 4714.

“I would want to assure the general public that our crime-fighting strategies employed across Area Four have been paying very good dividends, and we are grateful for the support that we are getting from most of the residents and citizens across this particular Area,” Phipps told Observer Online.

“We want to assure them as well that our efforts will continue, and we are really, really grateful that these efforts will continue to give us the sort of results that we are seeing, and of course, we know that their support is very crucial to our successes.”