Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher is warn­ing par­ents whose chil­dren are in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, that they can and will be held ac­count­able for their off­spring’s ac­tions.

She made the com­ment dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, af­ter it was an­nounced that two eight-year-olds were part of an ex­tor­tion ring op­er­at­ing in var­i­ous parts of the coun­try.

A tough-talk­ing CoP said they will be us­ing every avail­able method, in­clud­ing leg­is­la­tion to reign in tru­ant chil­dren, as well as er­rant par­ents.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher said, “We want to ad­vise the par­ents, be­cause we have chil­dren in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, and we are go­ing to use the leg­is­la­tion and hold par­ents ac­count­able for the ac­tiv­i­ties of their chil­dren.”

Ear­li­er, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent, North Cen­tral Di­vi­sion, Richard Smith, said par­ents must know where their chil­dren are, as he too warned that they would be tak­ing them to task if their young ones are found en­gag­ing in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.

He re­vealed that sev­er­al young peo­ple were re­cent­ly held in an ex­tor­tion at­tempt in his di­vi­sion.

Smith said, “The de­scrip­tion of the three per­sons who went to ex­tort or de­mand mon­ey from a par­tic­u­lar busi­ness­man was one per­son be­tween the ages of 17 and 22, and two around the age of eight years.”

Smith chal­lenged par­ents to en­sure they know their chil­dren’s where­abouts at all times.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land both as­sured there were var­i­ous pieces of leg­is­la­tion that en­abled the TTPS to act on not on­ly chil­dren but their par­ents.

Ex­press­ing con­cern af­ter learn­ing from one of his con­stituents that chil­dren of pri­ma­ry school age could be found on the streets as ear­ly or late as 3 am, Hinds said, “That is a straight ques­tion for par­ents.”

Scot­land al­so re­ferred to a vi­ral record­ing of three stu­dents gam­bling in a class­room as the teacher con­duct­ed a class, which was cir­cu­lat­ed ear­li­er this week, say­ing it was dis­turb­ing.

He said this was an in­di­ca­tion of just how dire the sit­u­a­tion had be­come and how brazen younger per­sons were now.

CoP: Homi­cides up but suc­cess record­ed

Asked if she agreed the TTPS had crime un­der con­trol, as had been claimed by Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin the day be­fore, the CoP said, “Yes, we have ac­knowl­edged that the homi­cides are out of hand, but we have al­so ac­knowl­edged our suc­cess­es in terms of vi­o­lent crime re­duc­tion.”

Con­front­ed with a mur­der toll that stood at 431 for the year up to the time of the brief­ing, she said, “You al­so need to know that al­though we are judged on that sin­gu­lar in­dex of homi­cides, there are oth­er of­fences un­der vi­o­lent and se­ri­ous crimes.”

Asked to as­sess the suc­cess of her call for cit­i­zens to pray in the fight against crime, Hare­wood-Christo­pher said along with in­ten­si­fied ef­forts by the TTPS, the pop­u­la­tion should con­tin­ue to pray.

“I am say­ing again, you do not dis­count the val­ue of prayer,” she said.

Say­ing there was dis­par­i­ty in the mur­der sta­tis­tics re­leased by the TTPS, which were al­ways “lag­ging,” and those of on­line me­dia out­lets, which left many be­liev­ing the fig­ures were be­ing doc­tored by the po­lice dai­ly, the CoP said, “I can as­sure the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty that the Po­lice Ser­vice is an or­gan­i­sa­tion that fo­cus­es on hon­esty and in­tegri­ty. Our de­part­ment, CA­PA, is re­spon­si­ble for the com­pi­la­tion of sta­tis­tics and I want to as­sure the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty that though you say sta­tis­tics are up, let me ad­vise on this. We have an in­crease in mur­ders and we have a de­crease in shoot­ings and wound­ings.”

Hare­wood-Christo­pher said they had record­ed a 15 per cent re­duc­tion in vi­o­lent crimes; se­ri­ous re­port­ed crimes were down by 15 per cent; and there was a ten per cent de­cline in wound­ings and shoot­ings for the year so far.

She said the cur­rent de­tec­tion rate for mur­ders stood at 11.7 per cent, which was a slight drop from the 12 per cent pre­vi­ous­ly record­ed.

How­ev­er, she as­sured, “With every day that pass­es and with our con­tin­ued in­ves­ti­ga­tion, we solve, and you have to re­mem­ber even though we solve based on one fig­ure, even if we get more mur­ders, then it will be greater.”

Asked if he agreed that the TTPS had crime un­der con­trol, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Hinds re­spond­ed, “Crime is a func­tion of hu­man be­hav­iour, the sin­ful na­ture of the hu­man be­ing. It has been with us since the be­gin­ning of time and it con­tin­ues, and there­fore the strug­gle, the fight against crime is an on­go­ing pur­suit.”

He added, “That strug­gle con­tin­ues in T&T.”

In­sist­ing in­ten­si­fied ef­forts by law en­force­ment had to work, Hinds added, “The re­sponse to the be­hav­iour of our cit­i­zens who com­mit crimes, bloody crimes, and the re­sponse to those who come in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go and com­mit bloody crimes, must con­tin­ue.”

Even as he ad­mit­ted the au­thor­i­ties had been see­ing some suc­cess, he said, “It is not a per­fect world and you don’t get a per­fect non-crim­i­nal, crime-free so­ci­ety, so it is a work that has to con­tin­ue.”

Asked lat­er on if the ques­tion of a state of emer­gency had arisen dur­ing Thurs­day’s meet­ing of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, Hinds said the on­ly de­ci­sion tak­en had been to re­port to the na­tion on their ef­forts to fight crime.