Gail Alexan­der 

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Fix the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) first and at­tend to Gen Z youths, or T&T’s crime wave will not end. That’s the view of ex­perts, in­clud­ing crim­i­nol­o­gists, on so­lu­tions re­gard­ing the coun­try’s dire crime sit­u­a­tion. This fol­lows last Sun­day’s quadru­ple mur­der, which be­gan in Gon­za­les and end­ed when gun­men bold­ly sought to “fin­ish off” their tar­get at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. Guardian Me­dia sought views about tan­gi­ble so­lu­tions from crim­i­nol­o­gists who have sig­nalled that at this point, it is go­ing to take more than talk to halt what may come.

Put Mar­vin Gon­za­les to help Hinds, fix TTPS–Dr De­osaran

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Ramesh De­osaran said, “The way the sit­u­a­tion is, it’s like­ly to wors­en in the months and years ahead. It’s fright­en­ing as sit­u­a­tions are so ran­dom—on your doorstep or gro­cery.” He said the main so­lu­tion to deal­ing with crime in­volves at­tend­ing to is­sues in the TTPS. De­osaran’s po­si­tion as a one-time Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion chair­man and TTPS Man­pow­er Au­dit Re­port Com­mit­tee has giv­en him in­sights in­to what’s need­ed. Among the rea­sons for the sit­u­a­tion, he felt the Gov­ern­ment had not im­ple­ment­ed some fun­da­men­tal crime pre­ven­tion so­lu­tion pil­lars to as­sist the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, such as the Po­lice In­spec­torate, to as­sess sta­tions’ per­for­mances. This re­quires law. He al­so cit­ed hu­man re­source re­quire­ments, pro­mo­tions, poli­cies, and ad­dress­ing the very low de­tec­tion rate. De­osaran said if the TTPS was not fit for pur­pose, he did not see much rea­son for op­ti­mism ahead.

De­osaran added, “Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds al­so needs help, as the sit­u­a­tion is now over­whelm­ing for him. I sug­gest with great re­spect that the Prime Min­is­ter put (Pub­lic Util­i­ties) Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les to work with Hinds. Gon­za­les’ good pub­lic pre­sen­ta­tion is quite favourable for pol­i­cy­mak­ing. His en­er­gy and Hinds’ knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence will go a long way to build­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence and get­ting things done.”

Re­form TTPS to deal with the re­al­i­ty

on the ground–Figueira

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dau­rius Figueira said, “All so­lu­tions must be ground­ed in the trig­gered over 2017–2022, when T&T sus­tained an out­break of on­go­ing ‘en­gage­ment’ with transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime.”

Figueira opined that T&T was sub­ject to the Colom­bian “mod­el” of crime “busi­ness”, but in re­cent years “the Mex­i­can in­flu­ence has in­fil­trat­ed,” par­tic­u­lar­ly con­trol­ling Port-of-Spain di­vi­sions. “You see, it is in the types of op­er­a­tions and weapon­ry used.

T&T’s in a dif­fer­ent war now,” he added. “A state of emer­gency won’t break the back of transna­tion­al crime, and deal­ing with TTPS de­mands po­lit­i­cal will. For the TTPS to be re­pur­posed to han­dle T&T’s war, the is­sues of pro­mo­tions, dis­ci­pline, com­mand and con­trol, and or­gan­ised crime in T&T must be ad­dressed.” 

Youths must be a pri­or­i­ty: Dr Seep­er­sad

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad said the sit­u­a­tion has reached the point where ac­tion is need­ed by all en­ti­ties in­volved rather than talk. He added, “My pri­or­i­ty is youths, as 2023 re­search by UWI and Ari­zona State Uni­ver­si­ty crim­i­nol­o­gist Charles Katz showed more are be­com­ing in­volved in gangs—sev­en per cent in Trinidad and 3.4 per cent in To­ba­go. GenZ of­fend­ers have sky­rock­et­ed in the last four years more than any oth­er age de­mo­graph­ic, and it’s not just youth from im­pov­er­ished com­mu­ni­ties but wider. That gen­er­a­tion has been sub­ject­ed to a va­ri­ety of fail­ures—fam­i­ly break­downs, job­less­ness, com­mu­ni­ty, politi­cians, and sys­tems—and is turn­ing to gangs. Seep­er­sad’s rec­om­men­da­tions in­clude

• Re­turn of gang in­ter­ven­tion pro­grammes like Cure Vi­o­lence—Project Rea­son tar­get­ing youths and re­tal­ia­to­ry vi­o­lence fu­elling gang wars. Gangs ac­count for 45 per cent of mur­ders. The project in 2014 pro­duced a 39.6 per cent mur­der re­duc­tion in hotspots. The rest of T&T had a 16.4 per cent de­cline. The project was halt­ed in 2014 due to a lack of fund­ing.

• Vi­o­lence “in­ter­rupter” me­di­a­tors in gang ar­eas to dis­cour­age re­tal­i­a­tions.

• Tech­nolo­gies, in­tel­li­gence, sur­veil­lance, and train­ing to ad­dress TTPS’ very low de­tec­tion rate

• Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion is of­fered in pris­ons where the re­cidi­vism rate is 45–60 per cent. • Use of rev­enue-gen­er­at­ing op­tions via the tick­et sys­tem, Pro­ceeds of Crime Act seizures, and prison in­dus­tries. Re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Garvin Heer­ah said, “The alarm­ing trend of vi­o­lent crimes, in­clud­ing heinous killings with­in gov­ern­ment and na­tion­al es­tab­lish­ments, de­mands a ro­bust in­te­grat­ed re­sponse from de­ci­sion-mak­ers. An ur­gent, mul­ti­fac­eted re­sponse goes be­yond leg­isla­tive mea­sures and a con­cen­trat­ed ef­fort to en­force laws through a co­or­di­nat­ed ap­proach be­tween na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and the ju­di­cia­ry.” Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he said, “An ag­gres­sive strat­e­gy to dis­man­tle the lead­er­ship and struc­tures of gangs and or­gan­ised crime groups at all so­ci­etal lev­els is im­per­a­tive.” Heer­ah’s rec­om­men­da­tions:

• For­ma­tion of a Na­tion­al Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions (NBI) in­de­pen­dent au­thor­i­ty with high­ly trained pro­fes­sion­als and ad­vanced in­ves­tiga­tive tools op­er­at­ing au­tonomous­ly from TTPS with au­thor­i­ty to con­duct com­pre­hen­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tions and make ar­rests. Align the NBI with its in­ter­na­tion­al coun­ter­parts to tack­le transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime with spe­cialised units. • In­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tions to iden­ti­fy and ap­pre­hend lead­ers of gangs and or­gan­ised crime groups, de­ploy­ing un­der­cov­er op­er­a­tives, wire­taps, sur­veil­lance, and in­for­mants.

• Mea­sures to seize crim­i­nal lead­ers’ as­sets and fi­nan­cial re­sources.

• Strength­en the en­force­ment of laws through rig­or­ous polic­ing and ju­di­cial process­es.

• Im­ple­ment re­forms with­in the ju­di­cia­ry to ex­pe­dite the le­gal process and re­duce back­logs, in­clud­ing the es­tab­lish­ment of spe­cialised courts for han­dling or­gan­ised crime and gang-re­lat­ed cas­es.

• Pri­vate sec­tor part­ner­ships to de­vel­op strate­gies for pro­tect­ing busi­ness­es and com­mu­ni­ties from or­gan­ised crime.

• Com­mu­ni­ty-based pro­grammes on ed­u­ca­tion, vo­ca­tion­al train­ing, and men­tor­ship to pre­vent youth in­volve­ment in gangs.

• Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­grammes for in­di­vid­u­als seek­ing to leave gang life in­clude coun­selling, jobs, and hous­ing as­sis­tance.

• Com­pre­hen­sive se­cu­ri­ty au­dits of gov­ern­ment/na­tion­al es­tab­lish­ments to iden­ti­fy vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties and take cor­rec­tive mea­sures. State-of-the-art sur­veil­lance sys­tems en­hance phys­i­cal se­cu­ri­ty.