RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

With the mur­der rate reach­ing 600 yes­ter­day, law en­force­ment ex­perts say the on­ly way to stop crime is to hit gang lead­ers in their pock­ets by dis­man­tling their fi­nan­cial em­pires.

Their com­ments came as Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Christo­pher con­ced­ed that based on TTPS da­ta, gang ac­tiv­i­ty is the preva­lent prob­a­ble cause of the mur­ders. 

Say­ing firearms were the weapon of choice for the crim­i­nals, Christo­pher said: “The choice that some make to be com­mit­ted to gang ideals and the avail­abil­i­ty of firearms re­main our great­est vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties.” 

She added, “Our fo­cus on the seizure of il­le­gal firearms nev­er gets placed on the back burn­er, as these are the weapons used to com­mit the vast ma­jor­i­ty of mur­ders. An­ti-crime ex­er­cis­es and op­er­a­tions will con­tin­ue in earnest as we in­tend to con­tin­ue to re­move il­le­gal firearms from our com­mu­ni­ties.”

How­ev­er, she again urged the pub­lic to sup­port the po­lice ef­fort by call­ing in in­for­ma­tion to the con­tact num­bers 555, 999, 911, or 800-TIPS, or the TTPS App.

“If we re­duce the num­ber of ac­ces­si­ble il­le­gal guns, then the num­ber of gun–re­lat­ed homi­cides should al­so de­crease. I know it is easy to blame us and shame us, and that comes with the ter­ri­to­ry, while oth­ers shoot, the tar­get is al­ways on the po­lice’s back, as every­one wants us to do some­thing, do more and do it now,” Christo­pher said.

“How­ev­er, this in­ces­sant and ex­pect­ed call for ac­tion on the part of the TTPS does not fall on deaf ears. As an or­gan­i­sa­tion we are ac­tive­ly seek­ing to deal with our de­fi­cien­cies.”

But speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia via Zoom, law en­force­ment con­sul­tant and weapons ex­pert Paul Na­hous said it was im­por­tant for all arms of law en­force­ment to work to­geth­er to dis­man­tle crim­i­nal gangs that prey on in­no­cent youths.

“De­tec­tion rate is up. How­ev­er, it is not cur­tail­ing crime. This is a fright­en­ing de­vel­op­ment be­cause there seems to be a lack of fear of in­car­cer­a­tion,” he said.

Not­ing that crim­i­nals are now more reck­less than ever, Na­hous said de­spite a gun re­trieval ini­tia­tive, crime is get­ting worse.

“I think in­ef­fec­tive dis­man­tling of the core of the gangs is re­spon­si­ble for the high crime rate,” he dis­closed.

He added, “While you are ar­rest­ing the low­er-lev­el crim­i­nals, the gangs are still func­tion­ing well. Their sup­ply of arms, am­mu­ni­tion and man­pow­er con­tin­ues. Their sup­ply chains have been work­ing well and they have not been dis­rupt­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly.”

Na­hous said the recom­mis­sion­ing of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT) was need­ed im­me­di­ate­ly and some of the pro­grammes which ex­ist­ed un­der for­mer Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith are al­so need­ed at this time.

He has this ad­vice to law en­force­ment heads.

“Do not be afraid to strike at the heart of the gangs. Get to the gang lead­ers and dis­man­tle their busi­ness struc­tures. In­ter­fere with their sup­ply chains and be war-like about it. You start to rat­tle them and they make mis­takes. When you deal with the gangs, you will bring down the crime rate.”

Mean­while, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad said it was im­por­tant to have pub­lic en­gage­ment in the crime fight. He said in the Unit­ed States, high­way bill­boards are used by the po­lice to iden­ti­fy crim­i­nals and sup­press crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties in re­al-time. He said if the po­lice can get the pub­lic on board, crime in­ter­ven­tion strate­gies will work bet­ter. He said while pub­lic con­fi­dence in the po­lice ser­vice could be im­proved, it was im­por­tant to reach out to youths be­fore they are en­ticed by crim­i­nal gangs. 

Seep­er­sad called on the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty to de­vel­op pro­grammes which can be rolled out in schools so stu­dents can de­vel­op pa­tri­o­tism and love for their peo­ple and their coun­try.

He ex­pressed hope that in 2023, more peo­ple can work with the po­lice and help in solv­ing crime.

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Paul Richards mean­while agreed gang ac­tiv­i­ty is a con­trib­u­to­ry fac­tor to ris­ing crime.

“Based on the CA­PA trends and rate of mur­ders, un­for­tu­nate­ly, the mur­der rate was trend­ing to the macabre fig­ure above 600 for 2022,” he said.

He at­trib­uted the rise to drug traf­fick­ing and il­le­gal guns in the coun­try, so­ci­etal in­equal­i­ties, poor so­cial­i­sa­tion of young men, an ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem that is not ad­dress­ing un­der-per­form­ing stu­dents, an un­der-per­form­ing TTPS and a ju­di­cial back­log with­out a sus­tain­able so­lu­tion in sight.

“Tough de­ci­sions need to be tak­en and im­ple­ment­ed. This in­cludes gath­er­ing the re­quired ev­i­dence to bring suc­cess­ful mat­ters to the courts, pre­vent­ing some of the crim­i­nal acts and tak­ing crim­i­nals off the streets,” he added. 

He said crim­i­nals feel they are not like­ly to be caught and are quite pre­pared to sit in prison at the ex­pense of the state. 

“We can­not con­tin­ue to bury our heads in the sand about the mag­ni­tude of the drugs trans­ship­ment prob­lem in T&T and pro­vide suc­cess­ful in­ter­ven­tions,” he added.

The Joint Busi­ness Cham­bers and the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers al­so both is­sued re­leas­es about the spi­ralling crime rate.

The Joint Busi­ness Cham­ber said peo­ple were scared to be in their homes.

“In the past, we have of­ten lob­bied for changes to leg­is­la­tion or poli­cies in the hope that this will help law en­force­ment and the ju­di­cia­ry re­duce in­ci­dents of crime and im­prove the de­tec­tion and con­vic­tion rate. Many of our mem­bers have sup­port­ed a large va­ri­ety of NGOs putting in place so­cial and youth de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes. We have put in place pro­grammes to strength­en cor­po­rate gov­er­nance and ad­dress cor­rup­tion and oth­er white-col­lar crimes that in some cas­es fu­el vi­o­lent crime. Giv­en the cur­rent cri­sis, we all must re­dou­ble our ef­forts to fight crime from all an­gles,” the Cham­ber said.

CR­BC co­or­di­na­tor Jai Lelad­hars­ingh said the in­creased fre­quen­cy of gang “re­venge tit-for-tat killings” in pub­lic spaces in broad day­light is erod­ing na­tion­al con­fi­dence.

Say­ing crime is caus­ing great anx­i­ety and fear with­in the pop­u­la­tion, Lelad­hars­inghj said home in­va­sions and op­por­tunis­tic crimes with­in res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ties are al­so a cause of great con­cern among cit­i­zens.