RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Se­cu­ri­ty ex­perts are warn­ing that adopt­ing El Sal­vador’s hard­line ap­proach to crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go could back­fire, un­der­min­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence, dam­ag­ing the coun­try’s in­ter­na­tion­al stand­ing, and open­ing the door to hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions.

The com­ments came as Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der re­vealed he was ex­plor­ing the El Sal­vador mod­el and oth­er crime-fight­ing mod­els to re­duce crime with­in six months.

But speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad said T&T should be cau­tious in con­sid­er­ing El Sal­vador’s con­tro­ver­sial crime-fight­ing mod­el, warn­ing that mass in­car­cer­a­tion and the sus­pen­sion of con­sti­tu­tion­al rights could have se­ri­ous con­se­quences.

“El Sal­vador’s sit­u­a­tion was ex­treme. Gang vi­o­lence was wide­spread and open­ly prac­tised. It had reached a point where gangs were run­ning the coun­try. That kind of re­sponse may have been a last re­sort for them. We are not there yet.”

How­ev­er, he said T&T’s lack of con­vic­tions un­der the coun­try’s an­ti-gang leg­is­la­tion was a fail­ure.

“We have ro­bust leg­is­la­tion. A gang is de­fined as two or more per­sons work­ing to­geth­er to com­mit crime. Yet not one per­son has been con­vict­ed. The leg­is­la­tion ex­ists, but we’re not ap­ply­ing it ef­fec­tive­ly. We need ad­mis­si­ble in­tel­li­gence and co-or­di­nat­ed ef­forts be­tween law en­force­ment, in­tel­li­gence units, and the ju­di­cia­ry,” he said.

Dr Seep­er­sad al­so warned against us­ing a state of emer­gency as a long-term so­lu­tion. “It’s a Band-Aid. It doesn’t fix cor­rup­tion, doesn’t cre­ate jobs for youths, and doesn’t ad­dress the root caus­es of in­ter-gang vi­o­lence.”

He added that any crime-fight­ing mod­el that sus­pends due process will in­fringe on hu­man rights. “There are peo­ple in El Sal­vador’s pris­ons who are like­ly in­no­cent, de­tained for be­ing in the wrong place at the wrong time. You can­not im­ple­ment that with­out in­fring­ing on hu­man rights. The state must bal­ance law en­force­ment with up­hold­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.”

Dr Seep­er­sad said the state should al­so stop award­ing con­tracts to gangs. “The State should not em­pow­er gangs. Once they em­bed in a com­mu­ni­ty, it’s hard to get them out.”

While he agreed that hard­line re­pres­sion had a role, Dr Seep­er­sad said re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion or rein­te­gra­tion was al­so need­ed.

He agreed that while gang vi­o­lence in T&T is grow­ing, the coun­try still has time to im­ple­ment ef­fec­tive, rights-re­spect­ing strate­gies be­fore re­sort­ing to dras­tic, re­pres­sive mea­sures like the El Sal­vador mod­el.

Mean­while, for­mer Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith com­mend­ed Min­is­ter Alexan­der for think­ing out­side the box, but he al­so re­ject­ed the com­plete adop­tion of El Sal­vador’s crime mod­el. He said it would be dan­ger­ous to grant unchecked pow­er to a po­lice ser­vice that has been in­fil­trat­ed by rogue el­e­ments.

“We have rogue and in­com­pe­tent of­fi­cers. Imag­ine giv­ing that kind of unchecked au­thor­i­ty to rogue, in­com­pe­tent, or vin­dic­tive of­fi­cers. That can­not hap­pen in this coun­try.”

Grif­fith said the fo­cus should not be on ex­pand­ing pris­ons but on re­form­ing them.

“We don’t need to in­car­cer­ate more peo­ple. The Min­istry of Jus­tice should fix the prison sys­tem, re­duce re­cidi­vism, and im­prove re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.”

He added, “What we need is de­ter­rence—high vis­i­bil­i­ty, rapid re­sponse, and re­al con­se­quences—so peo­ple don’t com­mit crimes in the first place.”

Grif­fith said if he re­turned as com­mis­sion­er, he would rein­tro­duce sev­er­al strate­gic units, in­clud­ing the Rapid Re­sponse Unit, Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre, Com­mu­ni­ty Com­fort Pa­trol, and a covert Counter Ter­ror­ism Unit.

He said, “We need poly­graph test­ing, drug test­ing, GPS track­ing in po­lice ve­hi­cles, un­der­cov­er work, and prop­er re­sponse times. Re­move rogue of­fi­cers from key ar­eas. These are proven strate­gies.”

Grif­fith called for ef­forts to re­store pub­lic trust. “Pub­lic trust in the po­lice was 14 per cent be­fore I took of­fice. It rose to 59 per cent in 2021. When the pub­lic has con­fi­dence in law en­force­ment, it be­comes a cat­a­lyst for crime re­duc­tion.”

He said im­prove­ments to con­fi­den­tial re­port­ing sys­tems and di­rect com­mu­ni­ca­tion chan­nels with se­nior of­fi­cers could help re­build that trust.

Con­tact­ed for com­ment, Min­is­ter Alexan­der said he was look­ing at all crime mod­els, in­clud­ing El Sal­vador and New York mod­els. He said this hard­line ap­proach was be­ing con­sid­ered on­ly for those who seemed like they could not con­form to the rule of law. Alexan­der re­vealed he was in dis­cus­sions with a team of at­tor­neys to ex­plore ef­fec­tive crime-fight­ing strate­gies, in­clud­ing cer­tain as­pects of the El Sal­vador mod­el. He not­ed that while many coun­tries were ex­am­in­ing El Sal­vador’s tough ap­proach, T&T would not adopt it whole­sale.

“We are not go­ing to treat this like how El Sal­vador is do­ing,” he said, adding that any strat­e­gy con­sid­ered would bal­ance the rights of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens while tar­get­ing the crim­i­nal el­e­ment.

Heer­ah is­sues warn­ing

Mean­while, re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Garvin Heer­ah is urg­ing the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Roger Alexan­der, to pro­ceed with cau­tion as he con­sid­ers adopt­ing el­e­ments of El Sal­vador’s an­ti-gang strat­e­gy in T&T’s crime fight.

Heer­ah, for­mer head of the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre and a re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert, said El Sal­vador’s ap­proach un­der Pres­i­dent Nay­ib Bukele has gained glob­al at­ten­tion due to its fo­cus on mass ar­rests, mil­i­tarised polic­ing, and the con­struc­tion of mega-pris­ons.

“Pres­i­dent Nay­ib Bukele’s ap­proach in El Sal­vador, char­ac­terised by a firm crack­down on gang ac­tiv­i­ty, has yield­ed mea­sur­able re­sults in re­duc­ing vi­o­lence and re­assert­ing state con­trol in gang-dom­i­nat­ed ar­eas,” Heer­ah said.

Heer­ah, who stud­ied the mod­el, pre­vi­ous­ly led a team that ex­am­ined El Sal­vador’s “mano du­ra” tac­tics as a case study while serv­ing as an Ad­junct Pro­fes­sor at the Eu­ro­pean Cen­tre for Se­cu­ri­ty Stud­ies in Ger­many.

While he said it may be “com­mend­able to ex­plore best prac­tices,” Heer­ah warned that any such mod­el must un­der­go a com­pre­hen­sive, ev­i­dence-based eval­u­a­tion be­fore be­ing adopt­ed lo­cal­ly.

He rec­om­mend­ed the es­tab­lish­ment of a Spe­cial Ad­vi­so­ry Team to car­ry out a full as­sess­ment of El Sal­vador’s strat­e­gy.

“The min­is­ter should task a ded­i­cat­ed, re­sults-fo­cused Spe­cial Ad­vi­so­ry Team (SAT) to un­der­take a holis­tic study of the El Sal­vador strat­e­gy—its strengths, weak­ness­es, so­ci­etal im­pact, and le­gal im­pli­ca­tions,” he said.

He not­ed that re­gion­al in­te­gra­tion is al­so crit­i­cal to the suc­cess of any na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty strat­e­gy.

“Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty In­te­gra­tion: Align­ing na­tion­al strate­gies with broad­er CARI­COM se­cu­ri­ty frame­works and lever­ag­ing en­ti­ties like the Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sys­tem (RSS) will en­hance co­or­di­na­tion and sus­tain­abil­i­ty,” he added.

Heer­ah ref­er­enced lessons from El Sal­vador’s “mano du­ra” or “iron fist” pol­i­cy, which saw both suc­cess and set­backs.

“El Sal­vador’s ‘mano du­ra’ (iron fist) pol­i­cy had sig­nif­i­cant suc­cess, but it al­so re­vealed the dan­gers of unchecked en­force­ment pow­er, in­clud­ing hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions, over­crowd­ed pris­ons, and col­lat­er­al dam­age to com­mu­ni­ty trust. Trinidad and To­ba­go must avoid re­peat­ing these mis­takes,” he re­vealed.

He added that the coun­try must al­so fo­cus on in­fra­struc­ture and hu­man ca­pac­i­ty.

“Key to Bukele’s strat­e­gy were the con­struc­tion of pur­pose-built high-se­cu­ri­ty fa­cil­i­ties, seg­re­gat­ed hous­ing for vi­o­lent of­fend­ers, and the de­ploy­ment of spe­cial­ly trained and well-equipped of­fi­cers. In­fra­struc­ture and hu­man ca­pac­i­ty are es­sen­tial pil­lars of such an ap­proach,” he ex­plained.

Heer­ah em­pha­sised that the re­al chal­lenge lies not in adopt­ing the mod­el but in how it is ap­plied.

“The suc­cess of any mod­el lies not mere­ly in its con­cep­tu­al adop­tion but in dis­ci­plined, law­ful, and con­text-sen­si­tive im­ple­men­ta­tion.”

Heer­ah added, “I strong­ly ad­vise the min­is­ter to be cau­tious and utilise in­formed de­ci­sion-mak­ing be­fore the es­tab­lish­ment of the SAT and be­fore any ac­tion­able strat­e­gy is de­vel­oped and vet­ted.”