Trinidad and Tobago has seen a reduction in crime since the implementation of the State of Emergency.
This was confirmed by members of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service during a Media Briefing on Wednesday.
Assistant Commissioner of Police for the North West District, Richard Smith, confirmed that there has been a 44% decrease in homicides to date.
“Port of Spain Division had five murders in 2024 around the same period. This year, they have two murders. Southern Division had zero murders last year, now they have one. Western Division had three, now they have two. Northern North Division had two, now three, 2025. North Central Division had four for 2024, and zero for 2025. Central Division had four for 2024, one for 2025.”
He added that there has also been success in firearm recovery.
“We have recovered 37 firearms thus far for 2025, as compared to 15 in 2024 for the same period. So that’s 22 less firearms last year, or we would see 22 more firearms this year, which puts us at 147% increase with firearm recovery.”
Violent crimes such as murders, shooting and woundings, sexual offences, kidnappings, kidnappings for ransom, and robberies have been reduced by 73%, and property crimes by 65%.
ACP Smith says while he cannot provide the exact figure of those arrested under the Anti-Gang legislation, the TTPS has made progress.
“However, I know that we have been engaged in arresting some of these members of gangs as well as gang leaders in some instances. As we all know, we have one gang leader under house arrest and another prominent person of the criminal world was in fact, placed in preventative detention two days ago, that’s from the Southern Division and we have in our custody as well as some other gang members. And we are, in fact, looking to proceed in the same direction as the person from Southern Division.”
Deputy Commissioner of Police Operations, Junior Benjamin, is urging the public to work with the TTPS in what he called their “relentless” fight against crime.
As of Wednesday morning on January 15th, the TTPS said the country’s murder toll stood at 14, compared to 25 in 2024.