GAIL ALEXAN­DER

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Dan­ger­ous crim­i­nals who were tak­en from the na­tion’s pris­ons yes­ter­day un­der the new­ly im­ple­ment­ed State of Emer­gency, are now con­fined at mil­i­tary sites in Ch­aguara­mas.

The two lo­ca­tions are Staubles Bay, which is the main base of the T&T Coast Guard, and Teteron Bar­racks, the main base of the T&T Reg­i­ment.

Both lo­ca­tions are not ac­ces­si­ble to the gen­er­al pub­lic, as the en­trance is manned, more than a mile off, by mil­i­tary per­son­nel.

The lo­ca­tions were re­vealed by an or­der made un­der the Pris­ons Act, iden­ti­fied in the Gazette as The Pris­ons Or­der, 2025.

The or­der lists two new places that can be deemed as pris­ons un­der the Act—(i) Premis­es ap­proved by the Min­is­ter at Teteron Bar­racks, Ch­aguara­mas; and (ii) Premis­es ap­proved by the Min­is­ter at Staubles Bay, Ch­aguara­mas.

The or­der was one of four new­ly gazetted doc­u­ments in re­la­tion to the SoE de­clared by Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo yes­ter­day morn­ing on the ad­vice of the Cab­i­net.

The oth­ers in­clude the procla­ma­tion of the State of Emer­gency; the Emer­gency Pow­ers Reg­u­la­tions; and the De­ten­tion of Per­sons (Dis­ci­pline and Place of De­ten­tion) Di­rec­tions.

Un­der the Pris­ons Act (Chap­ter 13:01), the list­ed pris­ons are the Port-of-Spain Prison; Gold­en Grove Prison; Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison, Gold­en Grove; Re­mand Prison, Gold­en Grove; Women’s Prison, Gold­en Grove; East­ern Cor­rec­tion­al Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre; and Car­rera Con­vict Prison; To­ba­go Con­vict Prison.

The act al­lows the min­is­ter to name places that can be deemed as pris­ons.

In de­fend­ing the de­ci­sion to call the lat­est SoE yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Gov­ern­ment is work­ing close­ly with the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to en­sure it brings tan­gi­ble re­sults in its fight against crime.

“This Gov­ern­ment walks the walk,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in a state­ment.

“My Gov­ern­ment came in­to of­fice on the promise that we would ad­dress the crime sit­u­a­tion in T&T as a mat­ter of pri­or­i­ty and that we would do every­thing nec­es­sary to en­sure that cit­i­zens felt safe in their homes, work­places, schools and places of wor­ship.

“(Thurs­day) evening I re­ceived an in­tel­li­gence re­port from the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and I im­me­di­ate­ly di­rect­ed my At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to take the req­ui­site steps to ad­vise Her Ex­cel­len­cy, the Pres­i­dent, to de­clare that a State of Emer­gency ex­ist­ed in T&T.”

She added, “I will not stand idly by for years, months, weeks or even days while a mi­nor­i­ty of il­le­gal­ly armed in­di­vid­u­als act in con­cert to in­tim­i­date the peo­ple of T&T. I will not tol­er­ate a resur­gence of kid­nap­pings for ran­som and oth­er heinous crimes ini­ti­at­ed by gangs. I will not al­low these el­e­ments of so­ci­ety to con­tin­ue to ter­rorise and trau­ma­tise law-abid­ing cit­i­zens and to wreak hav­oc in our land.”

This, af­ter yes­ter­day’s ac­ti­va­tion of an­oth­er SoE this year to deal with a threat from an or­gan­ised crime syn­di­cate. How­ev­er, the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) has slammed the fact that Per­sad-Bisses­sar took sev­er­al hours be­fore she com­ment­ed on the SoE.

It is the sec­ond SoE in T&T this year—three months af­ter an­oth­er one was de­clared by the past PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion from De­cem­ber 30, 2024, to April 13, 2025. That fol­lowed a gang vi­o­lence threat.

The TTPS an­nounced the de­vel­op­ment at 6.19 am yes­ter­day. Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro de­tailed the threat at a 9.20 am me­dia brief­ing. He said in­tel­li­gence re­vealed that an or­gan­ised crime syn­di­cate of per­sons from with­in the pris­ons and from out­side were tar­get­ing cer­tain per­sons - but not any politi­cian.

Gue­var­ro out­lined his ap­proach on Thurs­day night to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil and his rec­om­men­da­tions. Ap­proval was giv­en for the SoE and Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo yes­ter­day is­sued the procla­ma­tion on the ba­sis that a pub­lic emer­gency had arisen.

No cur­few was stip­u­lat­ed.

Reg­u­la­tions ap­ply­ing un­der the SoE were is­sued yes­ter­day. It in­clud­ed claus­es on pre­ven­ta­tive de­ten­tion, for an SoE Tri­bunal and a $100,000 fine plus five years’ jail for vi­o­la­tions.

In her state­ment, PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “For years, while in Op­po­si­tion, I re­peat­ed­ly called for a State of Emer­gency, not as cheap po­lit­i­cal gim­mick­ry to ap­pease the pop­u­la­tion lead­ing up to an elec­tion, but as a crit­i­cal mea­sure to at­tack the crime sit­u­a­tion with­in the pa­ra­me­ters of the law. This Gov­ern­ment walks the walk. We are tak­ing ur­gent ac­tion to cut off this im­me­di­ate threat at the root, and to safe­guard our peo­ple.”

She said Gov­ern­ment is work­ing close­ly with the TTPS to en­sure this SoE brings tan­gi­ble re­sults in the fight against crime.

“The State of Emer­gency came in­to ef­fect just af­ter mid­night when Her Ex­cel­len­cy the Pres­i­dent is­sued the procla­ma­tion and reg­u­la­tions. The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice im­me­di­ate­ly en­gaged in op­er­a­tions to se­cure the cit­i­zen­ry and the in­sti­tu­tions that up­hold the in­tegri­ty of the State. The TTPS and the Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to keep the pop­u­la­tion in­formed, as ap­pro­pri­ate, with­in the com­ing days,” the PM said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar didn’t re­ply to Guardian Me­dia query on how long the SoE may be in force for, if it will be be­yond 15 days and if/when Par­lia­ment might re­con­vene from its cur­rent re­cess to de­bate the SoE and ex­tend it.

Ac­cord­ing to law, by sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty vote, in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 10 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives can ex­tend the SoE by a pe­ri­od of three months. Any ex­ten­sion be­yond three months, re­quires a three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty vote in the House and Sen­ate.