Ke­jan Haynes

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood Christo­pher con­tin­ues to re­it­er­ate the role of prop­er par­ent­ing and the role of the church in ad­dress­ing the root caus­es of many of so­ci­ety's prob­lems. 

She said," When we fail at home, we dis­ad­van­tage our chil­dren and lay a foun­da­tion that breeds in­dis­ci­pline and even­tu­al­ly law­less­ness. " 

On the Church, she said ide­al­ly, it should cre­ate a safe space for chil­dren to de­vel­op good morals and stan­dards of be­hav­iour that will make them good cit­i­zens.

"The role of the church re­mains an es­sen­tial pil­lar in safe­guard­ing the wel­fare and the se­cu­ri­ty and safe­ty of our chil­dren," she said. 

The top cop was speak­ing at the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teacher As­so­ci­a­tion's Mid Year Con­ven­tion be­ing held in To­ba­go. 

She said the coun­try is see­ing in schools, an es­ca­la­tion in the fre­quen­cy, type and sever­i­ty of the ac­tiv­i­ties that have se­vere­ly af­fect­ed safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty na­tion­wide. 

"What we are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing to­day ap­pears to be the re­sults of the grad­ual, per­sis­tent and cu­mu­la­tive ero­sion of the ba­sic prin­ci­ples of ad­her­ence to law and or­der and re­spect for life and for each oth­er," she said.

Not tak­ing away the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the TTPS, she not­ed it en­gages in com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment and youth em­pow­er­ment through com­mu­ni­ty-ori­ent­ed po­lice of­fi­cers who have es­tab­lished di­rect li­ai­son with school prin­ci­pals to im­ple­ment plans and pro­grams to curb school vi­o­lence and ill-dis­ci­pline. 

She said this was done through school pa­trols, school vis­its and school lec­tures. She al­so not­ed chil­dren on sus­pen­sion are as­sist­ed in de­vel­op­ing ap­pro­pri­ate be­hav­iours and there are over 90 ac­tive po­lice youth clubs.

"The truth is, with all that the po­lice can do and will do, there is no ef­fec­tive sub­sti­tute to prop­er par­ent­ing," she re­it­er­at­ed.