Deep in the heart of Trinidad and Tobago’s criminality is that no one, particularly those alleged to have committed “political crimes”, i.e., stealing from the public purse, is put in front of a court, the matter pursued to the end with expedition, a conviction attained when justified, jail sentences, and big fines imposed.
The fact is that the investigative, prosecutorial and punishment systems have proven to be inadequate to the task of punishing criminals who steal from the State as distinct from petty criminals. What is particularly painful about the committal of such crimes is the reality that, in addition to the surface level of the crime as committed being embedded in the political and administrative core of the society, the consequences of such crimes have deep negative impacts on those who are victims.
For instance, those who steal from, say, a school feeding programme, must be required to serve an additional sentence for depriving children of being able to receive the benefit of a meal; the appropriate penalty for such a crime must then be added to that of the original crime.
Corrupt officials found guilty of denying residents of roads paved to allow for easy and efficient travel on them, must be fined and jailed additionally for the consequences, and made to go to work for residents of a community undergoing stress and trauma because of the crime – it’s called “Restorative Justice”.
Painful is the fact that such crimes deprive citizens of public spending on a service and product of one kind or the other.
The above, admittedly a bit provocative and difficult to implement in certain instances, are nevertheless valid when it seems like every Monday morning, there are public officials reported as being involved at one level or the other in a criminal enterprise.
The fact is that allegations of corrupt practices by public officials are indicators of an underlying malignancy that is continuing to eat away at the insides of the society.
What is worse, is that the allegations which flare up in public are those made mainly by officials who are in political and governmental offices and those aspiring to such positions.
The instances of such allegations reaching the courts and being determined in a fair and expeditious manner are quite rare and have not enshrined a culture of prosecution and conviction for the guilty.
Underlying the failures to successfully investigate and bring perpetrators to prosecution must be the existence of massive failures within the structures of government to hide the reality of crimes against the people and the State. From all of the above and more, it is clear that supervision of the administration of government is inadequate to detect criminal activity. So too it can be legitimately assumed, as charged by many, that there are those within government and opposition who look the other way when their colleagues face allegations of being involved in criminal activity.
The fact is that criminality of the kind alleged goes undetected and suppressed, without the perpetrators even facing the courts. What that does is to seed criminal corruption in the heart of the polity; the aggravation being that no one suffers the penalty for this culture which has been undermining this society for decades.