In 2013 vi­o­lent crimes have been re­duced by 33 per cent, act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams said yes­ter­day, giv­ing an up­date on the Gov­ern­ment's man­date to the Po­lice Ser­vice to re­duce vi­o­lent crimes by 50 per cent in a three-year pe­ri­od.At­tribut­ing this de­crease to "hot-spot polic­ing," Williams added: "The hot-spot polic­ing ap­proach is show­ing by way of con­fir­ma­tion that it is use­ful.

"What we are see­ing is that we have jour­neyed from Jan­u­ary to No­vem­ber pur­su­ing an op­er­a­tive plan and we have clear­ly recog­nised a 33 per cent re­duc­tion in vi­o­lent crimes. And for an or­gan­i­sa­tion and its per­for­mance, for me that is very sat­is­fy­ing but we are still chal­lenged by mur­ders."Williams spoke at a break­fast meet­ing at the Fac­ul­ty of So­cial Sci­ences Lounge, UWI, St Au­gus­tine. Or­gan­ised by the Women's In­sti­tute for Al­ter­na­tive De­vel­op­ment, it was ti­tled: "Con­ver­sa­tion with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice."

He said from Jan­u­ary to No­vem­ber 30, 2013, there were 366 mur­ders, with the Port-of-Spain di­vi­sion record­ing 112, and the East West Cor­ri­dor–Care­nage to Ari­ma–record­ing 73 per cent of them.A count by the T&T Guardian showed there had been 369 mur­ders up to last evening.At the end of the year, Williams pre­dict­ed there could be 399 mur­ders and 12,835 se­ri­ous crimes. Guns were used to com­mit some 70 per cent of mur­ders, he said.

Over the last decade, he said, there had been a con­tin­u­ous in­crease in mur­ders, with 2008 record­ing the high­est toll of 547.In 2009 there were 507 mur­ders, in 2010 473, in 2011 352 and in 2012 379.Hev added: "In 2013 the or­gan­i­sa­tion was still fac­ing high lev­els of vi­o­lent crimes. Firearms fea­tured as the weapon of choice of the crim­i­nal, es­pe­cial­ly in com­mit­ting mur­ders and oth­er vi­o­lent crimes.

"Port-of-Spain di­vi­sion con­tin­ues to be the di­vi­sion with the high­est lev­el of vi­o­lent crimes con­sis­tent­ly over the years... 2013 was no dif­fer­ent."

Williams: Public­sees us as cor­rupt

Williams said the fear of crime, main­ly trig­gered by vi­o­lent crimes, re­mained a chal­lenge for the po­lice.Say­ing this re­sult­ed in low pub­lic con­fi­dence in them, Williams added: "The pub­lic has seen and con­tin­ues to see the Po­lice Ser­vice as cor­rupt, abu­sive, un­re­spon­sive to the pub­lic's needs, an or­gan­i­sa­tion with in­com­pe­tent of­fi­cers and the is­sue of po­lice mis­con­duct be­ing high."

The or­gan­i­sa­tion, how­ev­er, was still in tran­si­tion, he said, as there was a move­ment to­wards be­ing more ser­vice-ori­ent­ed and pro­fes­sion­al.On bor­der pro­tec­tion, he said the po­lice were not the on­ly en­ti­ty re­spon­si­ble for com­bat­ing crime and his of­fi­cers were not the ones to pro­tect the coastal ar­eas.He added: "The ma­jor chal­lenge is, when we take guns off the streets, more guns come back in­to the coun­try.

"The Po­lice Ser­vice is not re­spon­si­ble for se­cur­ing the bor­ders of the land. There are oth­er agen­cies that must come on board in a se­ri­ous way if we are to im­pact firearm crimes in T&T.