Did the Honourable Minister of Works Jack Warner take a look at the crime statistics before he began his hang-them-high campaign? From the very nice T&T Police Service Web site, we learn that there are "over 6,500 police officers" in T&T. There were 343 murders last year, although the media reported 354. Of those 342 (or 354) murders, our 6,500-strong police force detected 56 of them. And Mr Warner has the gall to talk about "resuming hangings?" Once again, T&T's annual ritual of moves to "resume hangings" dominates the headlines. This time, it's a "petition" for Senators and MPs to sign. It's like a parliamentary referendum, perhaps, except it's not. It is probably as legitimate as the basis of the petition, itself: resuming executions will reduce the incidence of crime. And that's as stupid as stupid gets.
There are few issues as political and nonsensical in T&T as that of executions. Every year, somebody, a minister, the AG, the PM, some "community leader," gets in front of the cameras on a mission to "resume hangings." And, given that we're still a society in the Dark Ages that likes a steady dose of gore and violence, it gets support: blind support. But it insults our intelligence to no end. Any Form Three student can write an essay detailing how executions are not a deterrent to crime. Forget reasons of human rights and basic compassion; the facts are here for anyone to see. Executions have never been categorically related to crime reduction, and when we do execute it is sometimes illegal.
Police 'strength'
Back in 1999, nine were hanged in three days and the result was just three days of nationwide shame-certainly no reduction in crime. It was around that time that the crime rate in T&T spiralled. Not to mention, doubt lingers as to the guilt of at least one of the executed "gang members." In 1994, Glen Ashby was hanged ten minutes before his attorneys received a copy of the Privy Council's stay of execution and just six days before completing five years under sentence of death which would have made him eligible to have his sentence commuted. It insults our intelligence further that Mr Warner and the others before him would bring up hangings in such a big way when even bigger failures loom right before him.
"Our police-to-population ratios are very high," Commissioner of Police Dwayne Gibbs said one year ago. The "actual strength" of the Police Service was "more than the authorised strength." One wonders what "strength" he's talking about. Only 56 murders "detected" out of around 350 by 6,500 police officers? Clearly, T&T has one of the largest and weakest police forces in the world. And we are world renowned for it, too. I met a director from George Mason University in Washington, DC last week. When I mentioned where I was from, he was quick to say, "Yes, I know Trinidad and Tobago. When they started using your country as a drug shipment point and the crime just skyrocketed, we sent a research team down there. I hear the crime hasn't abated at all, no?"
3,500-plus murdered
What a claim to fame. But why not? To reiterate some of the facts presented in this column before the unfortunate state of emergency was declared:
• More than 3,500 citizens have been murdered in the past decade.
• At its peak in 2008 when the Police Service reported 529 murders (544 according to the media), only one in nine murders was solved.
• In 2010, there were 472 murders, with a detection rate of 14 per cent.
• More young black men die by homicide than by traffic accident, Aids and suicide combined.
• In 2010, T&T's murder rate ranked seventh worldwide, 37 per 100,000 people. That's higher than Iraq, Libya, Mexico and Rwanda. We stand right behind Colombia.
• T&T has the second highest crime rate in the region after Jamaica.
These are the facts we are dealing with, a tiny nation with a mammoth problem. Politicising this issue every year with talk about getting the criminals to the gallows faster and faster like an assembly line of cracked necks, trying desperately to score political points while toying with life and law is truly pathetic and unquestionably shameful. Trying to fix a problem by dealing with its result rather than its source is not the kind of approach we should expect from our learned government officials. Worse yet, insulting our intelligence with their platform antics reduces us to a level which I thought we had long left. The Police Service has failed. Every National Security minister has failed. Every Police Commissioner has failed. Social services have failed. Community leaders have failed. These are the things that need to be fixed in order to reduce crime. I would humbly suggest to the honourable minister that he and the rest of the Cabinet resume not hangings but an interest in getting these other things fixed.