Leg­is­la­tors across the po­lit­i­cal di­vide have come in for high praise by Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent, Ag ASP Gideon Dick­son, for unan­i­mous­ly pass­ing amend­ments to the Bail Act, Chap­ter 4:60, in the Low­er House on Mon­day. 

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Dick­son told Guardian Me­dia these leg­isla­tive changes would mo­ti­vate the po­lice and in­spire pub­lic con­fi­dence in law en­force­ment and the ju­di­cial sys­tem.  

“What has been hap­pen­ing over time is that we are ask­ing per­sons to see some­thing, say some­thing, and with the see­ing some­thing, say­ing some­thing, and the po­lice tak­ing per­sons be­fore the court, we are see­ing that the per­sons com­ing back out al­most im­me­di­ate­ly. So, it was hyp­o­crit­i­cal in how we dis­pensed jus­tice. That, in it­self, to me, will aid in us re­gain­ing a lev­el of pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence which is of­ten used as a road march in al­most every­thing that we do,” he said.  

Dick­son said the amend­ments, which al­so in­tro­duced the de­nial of bail for firearm-re­lat­ed of­fences to a nov­el 180 days (about six months), was a step in the right di­rec­tion. He be­lieves this will de­ter those like­ly to re-of­fend and en­cour­age the pub­lic to di­vulge in­for­ma­tion on crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.  

The Bail (Amend­ment) Bill, 2024 seeks to re­move the pro­ba­tion of bail on peo­ple ac­cused of mur­der, im­pos­es con­di­tions on the court’s dis­cre­tion in grant­i­ng bail to peo­ple charged with mur­der or oth­er se­ri­ous of­fences in­clud­ing those that are gun-re­lat­ed, im­pos­es a high­er bur­den on peo­ple ac­cused of mur­der re­quir­ing them to jus­ti­fy why they should be grant­ed bail and pro­vides for the act to be re­viewed by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al every five years. 

It will go to the Up­per House for the fi­nal stage.

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad said al­though three Op­po­si­tion MPs were ab­sent—Dave Tan­coo, Van­dana Mo­hit, and Dr Rishard Seecher­an—the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’s full sup­port was “his­toric”. 

She be­lieves the Op­po­si­tion may have been in­spired by T&T’s des­per­ate crime prob­lem. 

“I would say it’s com­mend­able and high­ly un­usu­al that the Op­po­si­tion would sup­port a bill, but I think that ne­ces­si­ty is the moth­er of in­ven­tion, and des­per­ate times call for des­per­ate mea­sures,” she said. 

“It’s his­toric in some ways and it au­gurs well for the coun­try if the op­pos­ing par­ties can get to­geth­er to do some­thing in the best in­ter­est of the peo­ple. I guess good sense pre­vailed on the Op­po­si­tion camp to sup­port this bill,” she con­tin­ued.  

Mean­while, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad com­mend­ed the Op­po­si­tion and Gov­ern­ment for unit­ing to re­fine the leg­is­la­tion and pass it in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

“I agree with the leader of the Op­po­si­tion that it doesn’t solve the prob­lem but it is part of the so­lu­tion to the prob­lem and it is a part of the so­lu­tion that we’ve ne­glect­ed for far too long,” he ex­plained. 

He ad­mit­ted that sev­er­al oth­er is­sues re­main an ob­sta­cle in­clud­ing prob­lems with foren­sic analy­sis and crime de­tec­tion as well as so­cial is­sues with­in schools, fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties. How­ev­er, he said the mul­ti­fac­eted ap­proach to crime fight­ing must be tak­en one step at a time.

“We don’t ex­pect to achieve every­thing overnight. If we do some things, and we do it well, that is a step in the right di­rec­tion,” he said.  

“And I dis­agree with the leader of the Op­po­si­tion in terms of over­crowd­ing the prison be­cause the whole idea about a Bail Amend­ment Act like this is that at least peo­ple would be con­sid­ered for bail where­as pri­or, some of them would not have been con­sid­ered,” he added. 

Mean­while, act­ing Prison Com­mis­sion­er Car­los Cor­raspe said he could not com­ment on sta­tis­tics re­gard­ing re­peat of­fend­ers un­til he re­views the da­ta. How­ev­er, he not­ed that those who are re­mand­ed are not count­ed be­cause they have not been con­vict­ed. This means there could like­ly be a much high­er fig­ure of re­peat of­fend­ers in this coun­try. When he moved the sec­ond read­ing of the Bail Amend­ment Bill on Mon­day, the AG re­vealed a 139 per cent in­crease in con­vict­ed male re-of­fend­ers from 2022 to 2023. 

As for over­crowd­ing in the prison, Cor­raspe said: “Once the court is­sues a war­rant the Com­mis­sion­er of Prison is du­ty bound to re­ceive the in­mate and man­age the in­mate as best as you can in all the cir­cum­stances.”