St. Andrew South Records Lowest Murder Levels in Decades as Police Credit Community Policing

The St. Andrew South Police Division is recording its lowest levels of deadly violence in decades, a turnaround its commanding officer credits to years of community partnership and targeted policing in a district once home to Jamaica's largest concentration of active gangs.

Senior Superintendent Damian Manderson said murders have declined every year since 2021, when the division ended the year with 164 killings. Between January 1 and July 12, 2026, killings fell by half — from 50 to 25 — compared with the same period in 2025, while the rate of cleared murder cases climbed 21 percent.

Speaking on the Jamaica Constabulary Force's Force for Good podcast, Manderson said the recovery grew out of a deliberate effort to rebuild trust. "When I joined in 2021, the division was treating with a number of gang situations, children being killed, women being killed," he recalled, describing how he and colleagues began treating St. Andrew South as a long-term project.

At that time, he said, the division had more active gangs than any other in the country — in excess of 75 — alongside a proliferation of firearms used to settle even minor domestic disputes. The policing area covers more than 20 inner-city communities, among them Waterhouse, Olympic Gardens, Seaview Gardens, Whitfield Town, Riverton and Cockburn Pen.

The scale of the problem drew national attention. In 2020, National Security Minister Dr. Horace Chang told Parliament that 78 of Jamaica's 389 identified gangs — 20.1 percent — operated within the division, the most of any. In 2019, Prime Minister Andrew Holness called St. Andrew South one of the country's most violent regions, and between January 2017 and July 2019 it recorded more than 400 murders.

Manderson said officers won residents over by "walking the streets, talking to the people," an approach he credits with helping the division close 2025 with 74 murders — the first time in nearly two decades that annual killings dropped below 100.

Area 4 commander Assistant Commissioner Michael Phipps said the gains reflect a wider decline, with the region's murders falling from 342 in 2024 to 181 in 2025. He cautioned against complacency: "St. Andrew South, you are turning the corner, but we are not there yet."