OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The roll­out of po­lice of­fi­cers to some 80 schools across the coun­try un­der the Na­tion­al School Safe­ty Pro­gramme has been hit with some bumps, even as par­ents con­tin­ue to call for long-term so­lu­tions to vi­o­lence and in­dis­ci­pline.

Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin re­vealed this yes­ter­day. He said while most of­fi­cers have al­ready been de­ployed, a hand­ful of schools were left with­out the pres­ence of of­fi­cers on Mon­day’s first day.

“The ma­jor­i­ty, three-quar­ters or even more, has been de­ployed. There was one or two lit­tle chal­lenges that we had, and be­cause of where the school was and where the po­lice of­fi­cers were lo­cat­ed, there was a slight chal­lenge,” Ben­jamin said.

“I guess about two schools that I know of yes­ter­day (Mon­day) did not have pres­ence. Those sit­u­a­tions were sup­posed to be rec­ti­fied to­day. We ex­pect these teething prob­lems, and we are still very pleased over­all with the per­for­mance of our of­fi­cers and the de­ploy­ment of our of­fi­cers as well.”

Yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia ob­tained the com­plete list of 20 pri­ma­ry schools and 60 sec­ondary schools where po­lice of­fi­cers have been and are to be de­ployed.

Ac­cord­ing to the list, the Port-of-Spain dis­trict had the largest num­ber of pri­ma­ry schools re­quir­ing po­lice pres­ence—nine.

For the sec­ondary schools, St George East had the largest num­ber of schools with po­lice de­ploy­ment – 10, fol­lowed by Port-of-Spain with nine, Ca­roni with eight, and St Patrick with six.

Some of the pri­ma­ry schools, like Rose Hill Ro­man Catholic School and Beth­le­hem Boys’ RC, have seen gun­fire and shootouts oc­cur in close prox­im­i­ty to the premis­es. In 2022, pupils of Rose Hill RC were forced to hide un­der desks as a vi­cious gun­fight erupt­ed near­by be­tween war­ring gangs.

Sec­ondary schools such as Moru­ga Sec­ondary, where a stu­dent re­port­ed­ly as­sault­ed a teacher ear­li­er this year, will be un­der the guard of po­lice of­fi­cers. So too will be the Barataria South Sec­ondary, which was ranked at the top of the list of schools need­ing po­lice of­fi­cers. That school has been the scene of nu­mer­ous acts of vi­o­lence, in­clud­ing fights among stu­dents this year.

In 2019, po­lice shot and in­jured a men­tal­ly un­sta­ble man who stormed the com­pound of the Barataria South Sec­ondary School and went on a ram­page.

How­ev­er, some schools that have been at the cen­tre of re­cent vi­o­lent in­ci­dents, in­clud­ing South East Port-of-Spain, were not list­ed as top pri­or­i­ty but in­stead placed un­der the “rov­ing” cat­e­go­ry, which means of­fi­cers will pa­trol the premis­es reg­u­lar­ly but would not be sta­tioned full-time.

Po­lice of­fi­cials stressed the list of schools will be con­tin­u­ous­ly re­viewed to en­sure po­lice re­sources are al­lo­cat­ed to the schools most in need.

“It’s not like they will not have a pres­ence,” Ben­jamin ex­plained.

“There would be a pres­ence, but there will not be di­rect po­lice of­fi­cers there based on the rank­ing and how it came in.”

He al­so ex­plained how schools were cho­sen for the pro­gramme.

“The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion was the one that came up with the rank­ing. There were two lists that the min­istry had, and at the same time, we al­so had a list from the po­lice stand­point of schools where we had the most re­ports. Both lists were com­bined, and then the fi­nal rank­ing was giv­en by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion,” he said.

But that ex­pla­na­tion has not eased con­cerns for the Na­tion­al Par­ent Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (NPTA). Its pres­i­dent, Wal­ter Stew­art, in­sist­ed that while po­lice pa­trols may pro­vide tem­po­rary re­lief, the mea­sure was noth­ing more than “a plas­ter on a sore.”

“The gen­e­sis of school in­dis­ci­pline starts in the pri­ma­ry schools and es­ca­lates in­to the sec­ondary schools. By the time a child reach­es Form One, many of them are al­ready bent in their ways. That is why this is noth­ing more than a plas­ter on the sore,” Stew­art said.

He ar­gued that de­vel­op­men­tal screen­ings from as ear­ly as age five are need­ed, cou­pled with so­cial and psy­cho­log­i­cal sup­port for chil­dren and their fam­i­lies.

“At age five, you must as­sess the child not just aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly but so­cial­ly and emo­tion­al­ly. You must al­so un­der­stand their home and so­cioe­co­nom­ic back­ground. If you can iden­ti­fy those gaps ear­ly, psy­chol­o­gists, so­ci­ol­o­gists, and oth­er pro­fes­sion­als can step in and work with the fam­i­ly,” he ex­plained.

Stew­art added that while such mea­sures would re­quire sig­nif­i­cant fund­ing, they would re­duce the long-term costs of crime.

“Look at the amount of mon­ey be­ing spent on pris­ons, on polic­ing, on health ser­vices con­nect­ed to crime and vi­o­lence. Spend that mon­ey mean­ing­ful­ly up front, and you will not need po­lice of­fi­cers in sec­ondary schools at all,” he stressed.