ACP Michael Phipps credits community backing for Area 4 crime decline

Assistant Commissioner of Police Michael Phipps says Area 4, long viewed as one of Jamaica’s toughest crime zones, has become a model of progress through steady intervention work and strong community partnership.

Speaking on the Force for Good podcast, Phipps said officers routinely enter communities most likely to produce crime and other social problems, seeking residents’ cooperation. That backing, he argued, has made the force’s task in Area 4 far more manageable and remains central to the division’s gains.

The host noted that Area 4 still carries a heavy stigma among many Jamaicans, reinforced in part by dancehall imagery that casts the area as a haven for gunmen. Asked how police approached transforming such a space, Phipps said the strategy began by treating St. Andrew South as a focused project — confronting entrenched violence, gang culture, and a wider climate of criminality.

He stressed that the effort rests on popular consent. Where the majority of residents want law and order and peaceful living, police work with them to deliver that outcome, rather than answering every individual demand.

On results, Phipps pointed to figures dating from 2021, when Area 4 recorded about 164 murders. Each year since, he said, the count has fallen — sometimes by modest margins — but the trend has remained downward.

Community support, he concluded, is a critical pillar of Area 4’s successes.