Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

In a can­did ad­dress to par­ents and teach­ers in To­ba­go, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher says the coun­try is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a lev­el of delin­quen­cy that has nev­er been seen be­fore, with an un­re­al­is­tic ex­pec­ta­tion for the po­lice to han­dle it all. 

Her com­ments come af­ter five stu­dents were stabbed dur­ing a brawl at Pa­lo Seco Sec­ondary late last week. 

She be­lieves that bet­ter par­ent­ing is the core so­lu­tion to not on­ly ad­dress­ing crime but al­so many oth­er prob­lems with­in so­ci­ety. Speak­ing at the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion mid-year con­ven­tion in Low­lands Mul­ti­pur­pose Fa­cil­i­ty this morn­ing, she said that while the po­lice have their du­ties, ef­fec­tive par­ent­ing is cru­cial for cre­at­ing a safer and bet­ter com­mu­ni­ty.

 “We are be­ing chal­lenged with a brand of delin­quen­cy that con­tin­ues to baf­fle all right-think­ing cit­i­zens, and in our des­per­a­tion, there is an un­re­al­is­tic ex­pec­ta­tion and over­re­liance on the po­lice to de­ter, de­tect, and de­tain.” Hare­wood-Christo­pher pledged the sup­port of the po­lice to the NPTA and un­der­scored the need for a col­lec­tive ef­fort to ad­dress the root caus­es of delin­quen­cy. 

“The truth is, with all that the po­lice can do and will do, there is no ef­fec­tive sub­sti­tute for prop­er par­ent­ing.” 

She al­so point­ed out the ex­ist­ing pro­grammes fo­cused on con­flict res­o­lu­tion and an­ti-bul­ly­ing ini­tia­tives in schools. How­ev­er, she said it was the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of par­ents to ac­tive­ly curb neg­a­tive be­hav­iour and pre­vent delin­quen­cy. She said that while the po­lice are com­mit­ted to their du­ties, the ul­ti­mate suc­cess in cre­at­ing a safer com­mu­ni­ty hinges on the ded­i­ca­tion of par­ents to in­still­ing val­ues and dis­ci­pline in their chil­dren.

“A lot is be­ing done, and there is still a lot that needs to be done. Ul­ti­mate­ly, our suc­cess re­lies on our de­ter­mi­na­tion to con­tin­ue un­til we get the re­sults de­sired.” 

She re­mind­ed schools, church­es, and com­mu­ni­ties of their cru­cial roles in fos­ter­ing a pos­i­tive en­vi­ron­ment con­ducive to growth and de­vel­op­ment. 

She fur­ther com­mend­ed the ef­forts of the NPTA in pro­mot­ing pos­i­tive par­ent­ing prac­tices and shap­ing a brighter fu­ture for the next gen­er­a­tion.

Mean­while, NPTA Pres­i­dent Wal­ter Stew­art ad­dressed con­cerns about ris­ing crime in To­ba­go and urged com­mu­ni­ty in­volve­ment in com­bat­ing the is­sue. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he crit­i­cised the me­dia for fo­cus­ing on sen­sa­tion­alised news rather than pos­i­tive events in schools.

“Let us start re­build­ing, which means we need all hands on deck. Let’s bring to­geth­er the com­pas­sion of the choic­es of love, ser­vice, and vol­un­teerism. Let’s show Trinidad and To­ba­go the con­cern for all our chil­dren: that they learn, de­vel­op, and de­vel­op and they con­tribute, be­com­ing pa­tri­ot­ic, law-abid­ing cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”