Jacob: Strategies under way to tackle crime for the new year

Acting Police Commissioner McDonald Jacob says strategies are being formulated and adjustments are being made to the police’s crime-fighting plans for 2022.

As of Thursday afternoon there had already been ten murders for the year.

At a media conference on Monday, Minister of National Security Fitzgerald Hinds said plans were under way to tackle violent crime at different levels, including through the removal of illegal guns.

Speaking with Newsday on Thursday, Jacob said tackling murders has been challenging for the police given the different motives which may lead to murder. But he said efforts were being made to boost the investigative capacity of the police.

"It's very difficult for us. We may have ten murders – we will have one in the South Western Division, we may have another in the Southern Division, we may have one in the Eastern Division, we have one in the Western Division. There are nine police divisions and we get one at a time in different places that are not connected.

"We get a few that are domestic or property disputes, and that is how the numbers are. And the way they are spread to the point when these things happen is beyond our control, so the focus is to solve them."

He said more information will be revealed to the public at a media conference next week.