Se­cu­ri­ty ex­perts and crim­i­nol­o­gists say that while gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties are known to have low­er lev­els of crime and could be an ef­fec­tive crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy, it is pos­si­ble for wealthy crim­i­nals to pur­chase prop­er­ties and es­tab­lish a base with­in the gat­ed zone.

As such, they are cau­tion­ing that gat­ed liv­ing may not be an ef­fec­tive crime-pre­ven­tion strat­e­gy un­less im­ple­ment­ed in an in­te­grat­ed way that us­es tech­nol­o­gy.

On Thurs­day, dur­ing the post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Khadi­jah Ameen said the Gov­ern­ment is mov­ing to strength­en crime-fight­ing mea­sures by cre­at­ing a na­tion­al pol­i­cy for gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties

But yes­ter­day, a source, who re­quest­ed anonymi­ty, told Guardian Me­dia that mon­ey laun­der­ers and drug king­pins look for fortressed com­mu­ni­ties to es­tab­lish bases.

The source said crim­i­nals have been tar­get­ing floun­der­ing se­cu­ri­ty firms and hir­ing hench­men as pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty guards.

How­ev­er, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad said that while re­search sup­ports the claim that crime tends to be low­er in gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties, this ap­plies most­ly to crimes com­mit­ted by out­siders.

“If you’re re­fer­ring to crimes com­mit­ted by ex­ter­nal per­sons, then those tend to be low­er in gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties be­cause per­sons ex­ter­nal to the com­mu­ni­ty have lim­it­ed ac­cess to the com­mu­ni­ty,” he said. “You have to pass through a se­cu­ri­ty guard; there’s bet­ter sur­veil­lance with­in the com­mu­ni­ties, all of which could re­al­ly de­ter crim­i­nals.”

He warned, though, that not all crimes are re­duced. “Of course, gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties aren’t ef­fec­tive in re­duc­ing oth­er types of crimes, es­pe­cial­ly those com­mit­ted with­in a fa­mil­ial set­ting. So, for in­stance, do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, child abuse, in­clud­ing phys­i­cal abuse and sex­u­al abuse—those kinds of things wouldn’t be re­duced by hav­ing a gat­ed com­mu­ni­ty.”

Seep­er­sad said that while the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al was “a sound strat­e­gy,” crime dis­place­ment re­mained a ma­jor is­sue. “It is not that gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties will re­duce crime in the na­tion as a whole. Rather, gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties will dis­place crime out­side of those com­mu­ni­ties. So the over­all lev­el of crime might re­main the same, but in the gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties it is re­duced.”

He al­so flagged is­sues of ac­cess and af­ford­abil­i­ty. “Quite of­ten in gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties, you have peo­ple who may be able to stick to­geth­er and work to­geth­er more ef­fec­tive­ly with each oth­er,” he ex­plained. “But un­for­tu­nate­ly, not every­body would have ac­cess to a gat­ed com­mu­ni­ty, be­cause quite of­ten ac­cess comes at a high­er price. There are month­ly main­te­nance fees, which not every­body can af­ford. This points to the is­sue of po­ten­tial seg­re­ga­tion.”

Law En­force­ment con­sul­tant, Dr Paul Daniel Na­hous, al­so said gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties were a proven crime re­duc­tion strat­e­gy and had a 33 per cent suc­cess rate in some parts of the Unit­ed States. He said it must be used in tan­dem with oth­er strate­gies, as it makes it more dif­fi­cult for crim­i­nals to tar­get the com­mu­ni­ty.

Res­i­dents feel se­cure

Yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed three bar­ri­cad­ed ar­eas in South Trinidad and spoke with res­i­dents. Res­i­dents said main­te­nance of armed pa­trols and cam­era sur­veil­lance se­cu­ri­ty was $300, $600, and $1,000, re­spec­tive­ly. One res­i­dent, who pays $300, claimed a drug deal­er lived among them for three years be­fore he was gunned down in Cen­tral, and po­lice raid­ed his home.

At Block Two Palmiste, where cam­eras, sur­veil­lance sys­tems, pa­trols, and a bar­ri­cade have been in­stalled, res­i­dents said they felt safe.

Chela Vashti Bhimull, sec­re­tary of the Palmiste Block Two Ac­tion Com­mit­tee, said they sup­port­ed the

Gov­ern­ment’s ini­tia­tive for gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties. She said that since they erect­ed a bar­ri­cade, they have be­come clos­er, and res­i­dents re­main in close con­tact through What­sApp chats.

How­ev­er, she called for a na­tion­al pol­i­cy to set uni­form stan­dards for gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties. Pres­i­dent of Block Two, Ray Wong­doo, al­so ap­plaud­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s plan, say­ing the pol­i­cy will go well with the pro­posed stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion.

Mean­while, Di­rec­tor of Spe­cial Elite In­ves­ti­ga­tions Ser­vices Lim­it­ed (SEISL), Selvonne Mitchell, said that while his com­pa­ny does not dis­close the full de­tails of its se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus, the key to suc­cess is in­te­gra­tion of peo­ple, sys­tems, and po­lice.

“You put in a gate, it doesn’t re­al­ly solve any­thing. It must come with pa­trols, mon­i­tor­ing, and screen­ing of who comes in­to the com­mu­ni­ty. In some of our com­mu­ni­ties, we use num­ber plate recog­ni­tion and even fa­cial recog­ni­tion. Once peo­ple know they’re be­ing ob­served and mon­i­tored, they tend to fall in line.”

On Thurs­day, Ameen ex­plained that the gat­ed com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tive in­cludes bar­ri­cades and guard booths at en­try points, CCTV cam­eras and li­cence plate recog­ni­tion, dig­i­tal pass­es for res­i­dents, and com­mu­ni­ty pa­trols. She said home­own­ers’ groups will al­so be re­quired to help man­age ac­cess and up­keep.