Senior Reporter
kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt
Former president Anthony Carmona says parents must examine their role in shaping children who become involved in serious crimes, warning that when a child is convicted of offences such as murder, rape or violence, the failure often begins long before that child enters the criminal justice system.
Drawing on his years as a High Court judge, Carmona said such outcomes represent a failure of parental guidance and mentorship, urging fathers and mentors to recognise their responsibility in influencing children’s values, discipline and behaviour.
Speaking at a Father’s Retreat hosted by San Fernando West MP and Education Minister Dr Michael Dowlath at the Petrotrin Staff Club in Pointe-a-Pierre on Monday, Carmona said the country’s crime crisis cannot be solved through policing and prosecution alone.
He argued that the solution must begin in homes, where parents and mentors have a responsibility to shape children’s values, discipline and behaviour before they become involved in criminal activity.
Reflecting on his years on the bench, where he famously observed that the “man-child is in crisis,” Carmona said the issue has now expanded into a wider crisis of parenting.
“Well, today I want to add to that maxim, that adage, that observation by saying that in T&T, parental mentorship is in crisis.”
He rejected the commonly used phrase, “I make the child, but I don’t make his mind,” describing it as a “foolish statement” used by some parents to avoid accountability.
For Carmona, mentorship is not optional. He said the daily examples set by parents—their discipline, values, presence and guidance—help shape children before they become adults.
Drawing from his judicial career, Carmona said he repeatedly encountered what he described as the “bolted horse”—cases where intervention came only after a young person had already gone down a destructive path.
The justice system, he said, often deals with the consequences of failures that began much earlier, and prevention requires stronger parental involvement and moral leadership.
Carmona also drew on his experience as a prosecutor with the United Nations during the Rwandan genocide, recalling the case of a Seventh-day Adventist pastor and his United States-trained doctor son, who were accused of locking hundreds of Tutsi refugees inside a church and burning it down.
He described the case as an example of “egregious mentorship,” where a parent’s influence helped guide a child towards wrongdoing rather than morality.
He contrasted that with a murder case in Trinidad, where he said a father encouraged his four sons as they chopped and stabbed a man to death.
For Carmona, whether dealing with war crimes overseas or violent crimes at home, the question remains the same:
“Who made those men to be the persons that they are?”
He warned that parents can sometimes overlook their children’s wrongdoing because of love and loyalty, creating a situation where young men can appear caring and respectful inside the home but act violently outside.
“I don’t want you to, for example, see misfeasance going on in your homes, and because it’s your son, it’s all right.”
“I tell people, we are breeding monsters in our homes in Trinidad and Tobago. Oh, yes. The son is home. He loves his mommy. He loves his daddy. He loves his sister. And everybody is just love, love, love, love. And the minute that son leaves the home, he becomes a monster, a monster who kills with impunity.”
Carmona said the responsibility of parents must be confronted before children reach the stage where courts and prisons become involved.
