DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

For­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter and ex-Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith has thrown his sup­port be­hind Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der’s call for tougher penal­ties on gun crimes, in­clud­ing au­to­mat­ic bail de­nial and life im­pris­on­ment.

Grif­fith’s en­dorse­ment fol­lows Alexan­der’s in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day, where the min­is­ter pro­posed deny­ing bail for gun-re­lat­ed of­fences for up to 180 days and in­tro­duc­ing sen­tences of 25 years to life up­on con­vic­tion.

While de­clin­ing to com­ment on the gov­ern­ment’s ap­par­ent re­ver­sal on bail pol­i­cy—af­ter op­pos­ing sim­i­lar mea­sures in 2020—Grif­fith re­it­er­at­ed his long-held po­si­tion that the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem is skewed in favour of of­fend­ers and in ur­gent need of re­form.

He al­so called for manda­to­ry po­lice body cam­eras and said in­di­vid­u­als caught with high-pow­ered ri­fles should be charged un­der the Ter­ror­ism Act and face life im­pris­on­ment with­out bail.

“Un­less there’s body cam­era ev­i­dence or oth­er da­ta that makes the ar­rest and charge in­dis­putable, peo­ple find a way out. But if you’re found with an au­to­mat­ic weapon—some­thing that can kill 35 peo­ple in three sec­onds—you should be deemed a ter­ror­ist,” Grif­fith ar­gued. “Ter­ror­ism charges can lead to life im­pris­on­ment with­out bail.”

He re­mind­ed the pub­lic that sim­i­lar bail-de­nial mea­sures were part of the Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion’s crime-fight­ing toolk­it be­tween 2010 and 2015, a pe­ri­od which he said saw the most sig­nif­i­cant drop in se­ri­ous crimes in over three decades.

“If you’re held with a firearm, you should be held with­out bail. That law ex­ist­ed, and it worked. It was a de­ter­rent,” he said.

Grif­fith cit­ed the “re­volv­ing door” in the jus­tice sys­tem as a ma­jor prob­lem, claim­ing that crim­i­nals ar­rest­ed for firearms are of­ten re­leased with­in 24 hours, on­ly to seek re­venge against in­for­mants.

“You ar­rest some­one to­day with a firearm, and to­mor­row they’re out on $5,000 bail. Then they’re putting hits on peo­ple who turned them in,” he said.

He ar­gued that of­fend­ers are well aware of these le­gal loop­holes, which em­bold­en them and de­mor­alise po­lice of­fi­cers who risk their lives mak­ing ar­rests on­ly to see the ac­cused walk free.

Back­ing Alexan­der’s call for a firm use-of-force pol­i­cy, Grif­fith added that of­fi­cers must feel em­pow­ered to de­fend them­selves against armed threats with­out fear of pros­e­cu­tion.

Grif­fith al­so ex­pressed hope that Min­is­ter Alexan­der would not face po­lit­i­cal back­lash for his com­ments, not­ing that the cur­rent ad­min­is­tra­tion had re­ject­ed sim­i­lar pro­pos­als while in op­po­si­tion.

But not every­one sup­ports the ap­proach. Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dau­rius Figueira warned that Gov­ern­ment’s hard­line rhetoric could in­flame racial ten­sions, liken­ing the cur­rent dis­course to “a Trinida­di­an ver­sion of Trump’s Amer­i­ca.”

“While we talk about the crim­i­nal el­e­ment, if that’s in­ter­pret­ed as re­fer­ring to a spe­cif­ic race dif­fer­ent from yours, it gal­vanis­es po­lit­i­cal ac­tion around racial pro­tec­tion—and that’s dan­ger­ous for Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Figueira said.

He al­so crit­i­cised the fo­cus on puni­tive mea­sures, ar­gu­ing that they fail to ad­dress the root caus­es of gun vi­o­lence or the op­er­a­tions of transna­tion­al crim­i­nal net­works.

“If you’re not polic­ing transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime, deny­ing bail for 300 years or jail­ing some­one for 500 years won’t mat­ter,” he said. “We’re spin­ning top in mud, and the vi­o­lence will just keep rolling along.”

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath al­so raised con­cerns about the le­gal and con­sti­tu­tion­al im­pli­ca­tions of the pro­pos­als, ques­tion­ing whether Min­is­ter Alexan­der was speak­ing on be­half of Cab­i­net or in­de­pen­dent­ly. He not­ed that while the UNC op­posed the 2020 Bail Amend­ment Bill, it did so con­di­tion­al­ly—re­quest­ing da­ta to sup­port the mea­sure and a sun­set clause to lim­it its du­ra­tion.

Ra­goonath added that by­pass­ing ju­di­cial dis­cre­tion and im­ple­ment­ing life sen­tences for firearm of­fences would re­quire a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty in Par­lia­ment and could raise se­ri­ous con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenges. He al­so spec­u­lat­ed that the pro­pos­als may be po­lit­i­cal­ly strate­gic and linked to the an­tic­i­pat­ed “stand your ground” leg­is­la­tion, which would ex­pand le­gal ac­cess to firearms.

Ef­forts to con­tact Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein were un­suc­cess­ful.