Ken Ali

Isha Ho­sein is just one of the lat­est. Ho­sein, a sim­ple and in­dus­tri­ous moth­er, was bru­tal­ly killed in a crime that has touched the na­tion's con­science even in the midst of the fre­net­ic gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign.

?Isha's mur­der gave the coun­try tem­po­rary pause and the sad faces of for­lorn, in­no­cent chil­dren graph­i­cal­ly re­mind­ed us of the scourge of our times. But most peo­ple have long stopped keep­ing dai­ly tabs on the homi­cide rate al­though the mur­der epi­dem­ic has led to Trinidad and To­ba­go be­ing termed one of the most vi­o­lent so­ci­eties in a not war­ring coun­try. "Trinidad and To­ba­go is the mur­der cap­i­tal of the Caribbean," screamed a re­cent re­port in Glob­al Trav­el In­dus­try News, an in­dus­try pub­li­ca­tion. The Unit­ed King­dom au­thor­i­ties have warned: "You should be aware that there are high lev­els of vi­o­lent crime, es­pe­cial­ly shoot­ing and kid­nap­pings." A US trav­el ad­vi­so­ry states: "Vi­o­lent crimes, in­clud­ing as­sault, kid­nap­ping for ran­som, sex­u­al as­sault and mur­der, have in­volved for­eign res­i­dents and tourists (and) in­ci­dents have been re­port­ed in­volv­ing armed rob­bers trail­ing ar­riv­ing pas­sen­gers from the air­port and ac­cost­ing them in re­mote ar­eas." Trinidad and To­ba­go has an av­er­age mur­der rate of 55 per 100,000, mak­ing it "one of the most dan­ger­ous places in the world."

The com­par­a­tive rates in the UK and Cana­da are two per 100,000. Two homi­cides in the Amer­i­can city of Chica­go yes­ter­day took the fig­ure to 100. Chica­go has a pop­u­la­tion of 2.8 mil­lion peo­ple. The homi­cide sta­tis­tics are a blis­ter­ing po­lit­i­cal and me­dia is­sue in that city. The mur­der fig­ure in T&T – with less than half Chica­go's pop­u­la­tion – is rac­ing to 200 at a stag­ger­ing pace of more than one a day. A US State De­part­ment re­port has sug­gest­ed that mur­ders in Trinidad and To­ba­go con­nect­ed to gangs would con­tin­ue to rise this year. There is no prog­no­sis for the fu­ture. Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning al­so fore­casts in­creased vi­o­lent crimes but on­ly for a lim­it­ed pe­ri­od. In his lat­est an­ti-crime sal­vo, Man­ning ar­gues the 360-de­gree radar sur­veil­lance sys­tem will zap the flows of il­lic­it drugs, lead­ing, in the short-term, to in­tra-gang war­fare. He in­sists there will then be a sig­nif­i­cant fall in gang con­flicts as­so­ci­at­ed with the drug trade.

The Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) 2010 elec­tion man­i­festo says for the first three months of this year, 35 ki­los of co­caine and more mar­i­jua­na were seized. In­de­pen­dent an­a­lysts in­sist, how­ev­er, that is a mere drop in the buck­et. At­tor­ney and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­date Garvin Nicholas claims the an­nu­al un­der­ground econ­o­my is worth about $44 bil­lion. "The war against il­le­gal drugs and guns will con­tin­ue in our next term," says the PNM man­i­festo. "It rep­re­sents a ma­jor strike against crime in this coun­try." The cen­tre­piece of the an­ti-crime of­fen­sive is the ac­qui­si­tion of fast pa­trol Coast Guard ves­sels, a project that made it to sev­er­al an­nu­al bud­get state­ments be­fore they be­came re­al­i­ty a few weeks ago. The Coast Guard now has 28 ves­sels. "Now we can match the speed and ma­noeu­vra­bil­i­ty of vir­tu­al­ly any ves­sel that op­er­ates il­le­gal­ly in our wa­ters," boasts the rul­ing par­ty.

The Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship's (PP) man­i­festo – due to be launched this morn­ing – is ad­vo­cat­ing a mul­ti-pronged an­ti-crime as­sault. "We will hold the po­lice ac­count­able for the ef­fec­tive de­liv­ery of their ser­vices, es­tab­lish­ing clear and mea­sur­able bench­marks for crime re­duc­tion and con­tain­ment," said leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar last week. The PP's of­fen­sive – said to be the hand­i­work large­ly of Gary Grif­fith and Ver­non de Li­ma – is ex­pect­ed to fea­ture the use of mod­ern and so­phis­ti­cat­ed tech­nol­o­gy. Grif­fith is con­fi­dent that the gang cul­ture can be bust­ed and in­ner city com­mu­ni­ties re­turned to peace. The jus­tice sys­tem is a Siamese twin in the crime chal­lenge.

The PNM has pro­posed ju­di­cial re­form aimed at eas­ing the flow of cas­es through the sys­tem and cre­at­ing "a more ex­pe­di­tious de­liv­ery of jus­tice." The re­moval of pre­lim­i­nary en­quiries for cer­tain cat­e­gories of crimes is among the pro­pos­als. For her part, Per­sad-Bisses­sar vows to over­haul the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, "re­bal­anc­ing the sys­tem in favour of vic­tims and en­sur­ing that crim­i­nals and civ­il mat­ters are sep­a­rate­ly ad­dressed." The elec­torate has heard much of the promis­es be­fore, since both the PNM and Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) lav­ish­ly list­ed cure-all mea­sures in their re­spec­tive 2007 elec­tion man­i­festoes.

To be sure, the mur­der rate is sure to be fur­ther hiked be­fore any of the pro­pos­als are put in­to ef­fect. In re­cent times, new re­sources have been in­tro­duced at snail's pace and leg­is­la­tion has gen­er­al­ly been bogged down by par­ti­san grid­lock. In the mean­time, Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains one of the most vi­o­lent places on earth. The politi­cians should nev­er for­get that shock­ing re­al­i­ty.