Loyalist and republican paramilitaries have carried out 1,700 punishment attacks in Northern Ireland since 1998, the PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde revealed today.
Rising numbers of IRA shootings and beatings are also tightly controlled and halted during crucial election periods, he added.
Mr Orde's assessment backed a ceasefire watchdog's damning dossier which exposed the Provisionals' ability to switch off the violence during elections.
The Chief Constable told a meeting of the Northern Ireland Policing Board there have been 613 republican assaults since January 1998 - most committed by the IRA.
With the trend slightly upward, he produced an analysis showing how the attacks were drastically scaled back following key Sinn Fein statements calling for an end to all violence.
In one case all punishments were stopped for a two-month period in the run-up to last November's elections to the Stormont Assembly.
During the same six-year period, loyalist terrorist organisations have inflicted 1,083 beatings and shootings.
Their frequency has almost doubled during that period, with marked increases coinciding with elections in Northern Ireland.
Mr Orde said: "One could draw an inference from that that there's more organisation on the republican side and less control on the loyalist side."
He disclosed the figures after being questioned by Democratic Unionist board member Ian Paisley junior.
Mr Paisley later insisted the figures backed his view that republicans manipulated their attacks for electoral success.
He said: "There's political control and the IRA switch the violence on and off at will."