MURDER RATE WORSENS

Days after the Finance Minister pledged more resources to fight crime, including hiring more officers and purchasing more equipment, police statistics show the murder rate has surpassed the figure for the same period last year.

Supt Lindon Douglas, speaking at the police press briefing at the Police Administration Building in Port of Spain on Thursday, said there were 454 reported murders for the first nine months of 2023.

Crime statistics on the police website show this is an increase from the 436 murders reported for the same period in 2022.

Five weeks ago, Police Commissioner Erla Harewood-Christopher, at the TTPS’ Independence Day toast, boasted of a “zero per cent” increase in murder rate compared to 2022.

She said a ten per cent decrease in murders over the previous months had brought the murder toll down to match the corresponding period last year.

While there was a dip in the number of murders in July and August, in comparison to 2022, every other month saw increased year-on-year numbers except April, which was equal.

Douglas said the figures for 2023 include the murder of 44 women, 18 children and 14 foreigners.

Douglas said the majority of the murders were classified as gang-related (184), followed by murders with unknown motives (99) and drug-related murders (50).

The statistics also showed that September was the second deadliest month for the year, with 60 murders, after January’s 61.

The East-West Corridor remains the deadliest part of the country with 221 murders.

Snr Supt of Homicide Rishi Singh said for the year, 60 murders had been solved.

This means that only 13 of every 100 murders are being solved, while 87 remain unsolved.

Singh said the unavailability of evidence is the major reason for what he described as the “disappointing” 13 per cent solve rate.

“It has very little to do in the first instance with the actual resource allotment, and it has to do with the evidence that is initially available to us. Despite the fact that we take journeys to investigate the matter, there are several factors that impact upon detection. Staffing is a significant thing, but the availability of evidence is the overall, overarching issue that decides whether we can charge somebody or not.”

Singh defended the work of police officers.

“(People) think if the police did not solve a matter, they did nothing in relation to it.

"In a lot of instances, we will reach suspect identification, and we are unable to cross the evidential threshold that is required to take a person before the court.

"So quite a bit of effort would have been placed into the investigation, but yet for various reasons, be it a low-impact scene in terms of transference of material or a quick scene resulting in low contact issues, these affect how many matters we solve.”

He said the public often feels the police are lazy, but this was unfounded.

“I want to assure you that once the evidence comes to u  – and it doesn’t only come, we search and hunt for it – and once our hunt yields something, you will see the appropriate action.”

Singh cited a case where he said little evidence was available, but police still arrested someone.

He said the homicide bureau has enough staff.

“We are at our sanctioned strength. Our commissioner ensures that the homicide bureau receives priority support both in human resource and physical resource allotment.”

Singh said most of the progress made in solving murders was with the public's help.

“We continue to be encouraged by officers who respond to intelligence provided by members of the public through various hotlines, resulting in the large amount of inroads and successes we have attained over the year to date. We want to continue to appeal to the public to understand that in the scheme of things, we rely strongly on you all to make our efforts a success. We implore you to be courageous, please, and come forward.

Murders by region

Region 1: Tobago, Western and Port of Spain divisions – 81 murders, 11 solved (13.5%)

Region 2: Northern, North Eastern, North Central and Eastern divisions – 221 murders, 27 solved (12.2%)

Region 3:Central, Southern and South Western divisions – 152 murders, 19 solved (12.5%)

Murders by motive & solve rate

Altercations – 28 murders, 14 solved – 39%

Gang-related – 184 murders, 16 solved – 9%

Drug-related – 50 murders, 3 solved – 6%

Revenge – 40 murders, 9 solved – 23%

Robbery – 36 murders, 8 solved – 22%

Domestic – 16 murders, 8 solved – 50%

Unknown – 99 murders, 2 solved – 2%

Other – 1 murder, none solved

Murders year on year

Month    2022     2023

Jan           52         61

Feb           36         42

Mar         37          38

Apr         53           53

May         39         49

June         36          44

July           65         49

Aug           68         58

Sept            50         60

Total           436       454