An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials in the South­ern Di­vi­sion say crime is down in their ju­ris­dic­tion and they plan to keep it that way, de­spite 36 re­ports of home in­va­sions since the start of the year.

Speak­ing dur­ing the week­ly me­dia brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, Supt Lystra Bridge­lal said 12 of the re­port­ed home in­va­sion cas­es had been solved, rep­re­sent­ing a 32 per cent de­tec­tion rate.

Bridge­lal said a re­cent break­through in the Gas­par­il­lo area re­sult­ed in the ar­rest of 11 peo­ple, who have since been placed on Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs).

She said, “As a re­sult, there has been a de­crease in this in­ci­dent of crime.

“In the Bar­rack­pore and Princes Town dis­tricts, there has been a no­tice­able de­crease in home in­va­sions due to main per­pe­tra­tors be­ing ar­rest­ed and charged for these of­fences.”

Bridge­lal at­trib­uted the in­crease in the ex­e­cu­tion of war­rants to the “ag­gres­sive” ef­forts of po­lice of­fi­cers.

Supt Richard Bertie said the di­vi­sion re­mained fo­cused on tack­ling vi­o­lent crime and iden­ti­fy­ing the caus­es be­hind mur­ders, in­clud­ing al­ter­ca­tions, do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, rob­bery, drug-re­lat­ed in­ci­dents and re­venge/dis­putes.

With a 27 per cent solve rate for mur­ders, Bertie said of­fi­cers were do­ing all they could and would have pre­ferred.

He said he hoped to see a con­tin­ued down­ward trend in mur­ders in the com­ing days, adding that the State of Emer­gency (SoE) reg­u­la­tions had pro­vid­ed of­fi­cers with an ex­pand­ed scope of pow­ers.

“We at the South­ern Di­vi­sion are fac­ing the crime sit­u­a­tion head on. We are not bury­ing our heads in the sand,” he as­sured.

Bertie said of­fi­cers were fo­cused on high-risk ar­eas and had in­tro­duced mea­sures aimed at fur­ther re­duc­ing crime. These in­clude en­hanc­ing pub­lic en­gage­ment through town meet­ings, com­mu­ni­ty walk­a­bouts, youth en­gage­ments, par­ent­ing in­ter­ven­tions and oth­er stake­hold­er events.

Mean­while, the South­ern Di­vi­sion’s SkyNet Pro­gramme, which was in­tro­duced in 2018 and fur­ther de­vel­oped in 2025, con­tin­ues to use CCTV cam­eras as a crime-fight­ing tool to pro­vide re­al-time mon­i­tor­ing and re­lay in­for­ma­tion to of­fi­cers on the ground.

Re­spond­ing to calls from res­i­dents and busi­ness own­ers for in­creased pa­trols on week­ends and af­ter hours dur­ing the week, Bridge­lal as­sured that the di­vi­sion had al­ready im­ple­ment­ed those mea­sures and would con­tin­ue re­spond­ing to con­cerns raised by burgess­es.

Re­gard­ing re­cent cop­per theft in­ci­dents in­volv­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) and the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA), Bridge­lal said one per­son had been ar­rest­ed and charged.

SOUTH­ERN DI­VI­SION CRIME FIG­URES AT A GLANCE

• Se­ri­ous Re­port­ed Crimes (Jan 1–Ju­ly 20):

2025: 831 in­ci­dents

2026: 775 in­ci­dents

Re­duc­tion: 56 few­er in­ci­dents (7% de­crease)

• De­tec­tion rate:

2025: 50%

2026: 54%

• Mur­ders:

2025: 31

2026: 26

Re­duc­tion: 16%

• Firearms and am­mu­ni­tion re­cov­ered:

41 il­le­gal firearms

493 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion

• War­rants ex­e­cut­ed:

2025: 755

2026: 762