Ani­ka Gumbs-San­di­ford

T&T is un­der lock­down! Hours af­ter the Gov­ern­ment ap­point­ed Cana­di­an Dwayne Gibbs as this coun­try's new Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice a 24-hour lock­down has gone in­to ef­fect through­out T&T. The an­nounce­ment was made by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar at the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment launch at Mid Cen­tre Mall on Fri­day. The lock­down, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, is a strin­gent joint force com­pris­ing heavy po­lice and army pres­ence tar­get­ing crim­i­nal el­e­ments on week­ends. The lock­down com­menced at 5 pm on Fri­day and is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue un­til a dent is seen in the es­ca­lat­ing crime sit­u­a­tion. The force­ful mea­sures Per­sad-Bisses­sar said had be­come nec­es­sary giv­en the crim­i­nals non-stop ap­proach. Sta­tis­tics, the prime min­is­ter re­vealed, showed that up un­til June 26 of this year there was a to­tal of 9,665 crimes and on­ly 1,388 were solved.

The fig­ure, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, rep­re­sent­ed a mi­nus­cule 17 per cent of crimes de­tect­ed for the first six months of the year. "Crimes are in­creas­ing and the de­tec­tion rate is falling. We have seen the sta­tis­tics and we have no­ticed on week­ends those evil el­e­ments come out. When these crim­i­nal el­e­ments come out the mur­ders are in­creas­ing. Po­lice of­fi­cers and sol­diers will be de­ployed through­out the week­end as far as we can sus­tain, the Prime Min­is­ter vowed. The move, how­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, is on­ly part of the three-part plan that is aimed at get­ting rid of the crim­i­nal el­e­ments tar­get­ing so­ci­ety. The Prime Min­is­ter fur­ther re­vealed that Gov­ern­ment is al­so mov­ing to fill the 1,500 va­can­cies loom­ing with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice for the past four years.

"We are go­ing to ad­ver­tise and re­cruit re­tired po­lice and De­fence Force of­fi­cers im­me­di­ate­ly. They will sit and in­struct from the of­fices and the young ones will go out on the beat. We must beef up se­cu­ri­ty forces and we are al­so mov­ing to ex­pe­dite the qual­i­ty of new re­cruits com­ing in­to the ser­vice." In ad­di­tion, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, Gov­ern­ment is al­so mov­ing to put in­to place an­ti-gang leg­is­la­tion and to make an amend­ment to the Bail Act. "Those charged with gang-re­lat­ed of­fences would not be able to get bail when those two pieces of leg­is­la­tion are re­viewed," she added.

Se­ri­ous crimes

2005- 17,989 6 per cent

2006- 19,565 24 per cent

2007- 19,661 23 per cent

2008- 20,566 17 per cent

2009- 22,161 17 per cent

2010- 9,665 14 per cent

NB: The per cent fig­ure rep­re­sents the num­bers of crimes de­tect­ed

Kam­la to Gibbs:

Per­form or ship out

Mean­while, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said if Gibbs did not per­form he will be fired. Twen­ty five MPs vot­ed for Gibbs to as­sume the po­si­tion of top cop on Fri­day, while the Op­po­si­tion opt­ed to ab­stain from vot­ing.

De­fend­ing the de­ci­sion Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "Should he not per­form he comes on con­tract. In the con­tract there are bench­marks of per­for­mance and if you do not per­form fire you. If you do not per­form ship out. Maybe it is not the best; maybe it is best on­ly time will tell."