The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) record­ed 265 homi­cides be­tween Jan­u­ary and Sep­tem­ber this year, a 3.6 per cent de­crease com­pared with the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od in 2025 and a 44.2 per cent de­cline com­pared with 2024.

The fig­ures were re­leased yes­ter­day by the TTPS in its Third Quar­ter 2026 Pub­lic Per­for­mance Ap­praisal, which com­pares the ser­vice's per­for­mance over the first nine months of 2026 with the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­ods in the pre­vi­ous two years.

The re­port al­so showed a de­cline in se­ri­ous re­port­ed crime and road traf­fic ac­ci­dents, with the po­lice ser­vice de­scrib­ing the fig­ures as ev­i­dence of progress while ac­knowl­edg­ing sev­er­al ar­eas re­quir­ing con­tin­ued at­ten­tion.

Se­ri­ous re­port­ed crime fell to 7,593 in­ci­dents, rep­re­sent­ing a 13.3 per cent re­duc­tion com­pared with the 2025 fig­ure and a 17.3 per cent de­crease com­pared with 2024.

Road traf­fic ac­ci­dents al­so de­clined, with 13,324 re­port­ed be­tween Jan­u­ary and Sep­tem­ber, 36.8 per cent few­er than in the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od last year. Fa­tal road traf­fic ac­ci­dents de­creased by 27.2 per cent com­pared with 2025.

The TTPS al­so placed the homi­cide fig­ures in a his­tor­i­cal con­text, not­ing that the 265 mur­ders record­ed so far this year were low­er than the cor­re­spond­ing nine-month to­tals in 20 of the pre­ced­ing 25 years, dat­ing back to 2001.

On­ly five years, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2007, record­ed few­er homi­cides dur­ing the same pe­ri­od.

How­ev­er, the po­lice ser­vice cau­tioned that the his­tor­i­cal com­par­i­son did not, by it­self, es­tab­lish the rea­sons for the changes or ac­count for fac­tors such as pop­u­la­tion growth and dif­fer­ences in crime-record­ing prac­tices.

The ap­praisal al­so high­light­ed sev­er­al ar­eas of con­cern, in­clud­ing a mar­gin­al in­crease in kid­nap­pings for ran­som, which rose from six re­ports in 2025 to sev­en this year.

Re­port­ed sex­u­al of­fences and fraud al­so in­creased. How­ev­er, the TTPS at­trib­uted the in­creas­es in these cat­e­gories to greater re­port­ing.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro said the re­lease of the ap­praisal was part of the ser­vice's com­mit­ment to trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty and ev­i­dence-based as­sess­ment.

He said the pub­lic was en­ti­tled to re­ceive a clear ac­count of the po­lice ser­vice's per­for­mance, in­clud­ing ar­eas where it had fall­en short.

"Progress is not vic­to­ry. Where we are im­prov­ing, we will say so. Where we are falling short or re­quire greater ef­fort, we will say so with equal can­dour," Gue­var­ro said.

The re­port was sub­mit­ted to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil yes­ter­day be­fore be­ing made pub­lic.

Gue­var­ro said the ap­praisal was not in­tend­ed to sug­gest that the po­lice ser­vice had com­plet­ed its work, but to pro­vide the pub­lic with mea­sur­able in­for­ma­tion on its achieve­ments, chal­lenges and op­er­a­tional pri­or­i­ties.