Gail Alexan­der

The Gov­ern­ment has start­ed launch­ing so­cial and train­ing pro­grammes to as­sist an­ti-so­cial young males and var­i­ous hot-spot com­mu­ni­ties where crime is spawned. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­di­cat­ed this dur­ing Sun­day's Low­er House de­bate on the state of emer­gency ex­ten­sion.

Among a pack­age of an­ti-crime ini­tia­tives, in­clud­ing projects to pro­vide jobs and help var­i­ous ar­eas, Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed the launch of the Life­S­port Pro­gramme tar­get­ing at-risk ar­eas. This pro­vides an al­ter­na­tive op­por­tu­ni­ty for 1,800 an­ti-so­cial young males to be in­volved in pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ment through sport by 2013.

It will train young peo­ple in a spe­cif­ic sport­ing dis­ci­pline for two years by 2013. The pro­gramme will al­so fos­ter the de­vel­op­ment of a per­cent­age of par­tic­i­pants as emerg­ing ath­letes to be­come out­stand­ing sport per­form­ers. The ini­tia­tive will al­so pre­pare a cadre of 80-90 per cent of young males, through so­cial skills and psy­cho­log­i­cal train­ing, for en­try to cer­ti­fied in­dus­try spe­cif­ic and oth­er forms of ap­pren­tice­ship train­ing. Next Wednes­day, the Gov­ern­ment will un­veil the Mor­vant-Laven­tille Ini­tia­tive as an­oth­er step in the pack­age of com­mu­ni­ty sup­port ini­tia­tives, she added.

Apart from a Gun Court be­ing planned, the PM al­so re­vealed more an­ti-crime leg­is­la­tion to come:

The Firearms and Kid­nap­ping Court Bill;

the Elec­tron­ic Mon­i­tor­ing (GPS an­kle bracelet) Bill;

the Sex­u­al Of­fences (Amend­ment) Bill;

the Crim­i­nal Pro­ce­dure Dis­clo­sure Bill;

a re­vamped DNA bill;

a bill to abol­ish pre­lim­i­nary en­quiries;

a Dan­ger­ous Dogs Act; and

up­dat­ed prison rules.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in de­bate, slammed the Op­po­si­tion PNM, say­ing there was an "un­prece­dent­ed crime rise" dur­ing PNM tenure. She added: "The mo­ment the PNM gov­ern­ment de­cid­ed to ne­go­ti­ate with crim­i­nal el­e­ments in ex­change for po­lit­i­cal sup­port, it trig­gered a dan­ger­ous course of events from which T&T is still reel­ing to­day....the PNM con­ferred the ti­tle of 'com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers' on gang lead­ers." "It gave them a sense of le­git­i­ma­cy and erod­ed what­ev­er lit­tle hope there was for the restora­tion of law and or­der," she added.