ST JAMES, Jamaica — Coming off another year of reductions in the murder figures, the St James police has revealed a new target for 2026.

“We have a target now of below 50, personal internal target of below 50, and we intend to keep that target,” divisional commander for the parish, senior superintendent Eron Samuels, declared.

Samuels was delivering the monthly report at the regular month meeting of the St James Municipal Corporation on Thursday.

“The team that I have here working with in St James are very committed in ensuring that we set targets and meet targets,” he said.

St James, which for years has struggled with high murder figures, saw another major reduction throughout 2025.

“For 2025, we set out on a mandate to ensure we had below 100 standard net internal murders and at the close of the year, we ended up with 58 murders in comparison to 125 murders in 2024, which is a 54 per cent reduction,” he said.

He insisted that other major crimes fell during the period, highlighting the work of the members of the security forces in the parish.

“We had 62 shootings compared to 111, which is a 44 per cent reduction, and a overall reduction in serious crime is of 19 per cent across the division,” he said.

He also explained that they had some issues with robberies, but that they were able to make some inroads into tackling that lingering issue.

“Whilst we had some issues with robberies, which is a major concern within the township, that situation we honestly believe that we have gotten some major headway in that with persons arrested and before the courts,” he said.

“Also, persons who are involved in incidents right across the country are not just in custody in St James but in other divisions,” he said about the current situation.

This, he said, was positive as it related to the holiday season, which is usually a challenge as it relates to robberies.

“We saw through the Christmas period, where we had very low amounts of robberies. In the Christmas period, this is a first for the St James division,” he declared.

He expressed his gratitude to all entities and agencies that have worked with the police to make this change in the parish.

“We’re really happy with the results coming out of last year. I must say that the partnership that we have had with the agencies right throughout the year has allowed us to have this sort of success that we’re seeing,” he said.