Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has pro­posed to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley that the first an­ti-crime dis­cus­sions be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion take place af­ter the 2024 Bud­get ac­tiv­i­ties. She has sug­gest­ed that in the in­ter­im, the Gov­ern­ment should in­vite par­tic­i­pa­tion from stake­hold­ers who wish to be part of the dis­cus­sions.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­di­cat­ed this in her let­ter to Row­ley­on Tues­day, in re­sponse to Row­ley’s Sep­tem­ber 16 let­ter to her on hav­ing an­ti-crime dis­cus­sions be­tween the par­ties.

This arose af­ter Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo’s Sep­tem­ber 11 call for col­lab­o­ra­tion across the par­lia­men­tary aisles on an­ti-crime mea­sures and leg­is­la­tion, and Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s will­ing­ness to sup­port the Gov­ern­ment on the is­sue. Op­po­si­tion calls for such talks in April had gar­nered no pos­i­tive re­sult.

Row­ley’s sub­se­quent let­ter pro­posed hav­ing joint sub­mis­sions with­in a fort­night.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s let­ter start­ed by stat­ing, “Our na­tion is un­der siege, and the blood of in­no­cents, in­clud­ing our chil­dren, flows with­out end. Trinidad and To­ba­go cur­rent­ly ranks sixth in the world for vi­o­lent crim­i­nal­i­ty due to se­ri­ous crimes and mur­ders be­ing at record highs over the past five years.”

Say­ing some­thing must be done to ad­dress this “hor­ren­dous and ag­o­nis­ing ter­ror ef­fec­tive­ly”, she added, “Hence­for­ward, forg­ing a path to­ward a safer and more se­cure Trinidad and To­ba­go is in every­one’s best in­ter­est.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said due to the Bud­get on Oc­to­ber 2 and the as­so­ci­at­ed de­bates that fol­low, a first meet­ing should be con­sid­ered for any time fol­low­ing the con­clu­sion of bud­get ac­tiv­i­ties.

In the in­ter­im, she said, “I sug­gest you ex­tend in­vi­ta­tions to the many stake­hold­ers and ex­perts who may wish to be in­volved in an­ti-crime dis­cus­sions with our good selves. Over the past few days, many have pub­licly in­di­cat­ed their de­sire and will­ing­ness to par­tic­i­pate in the pro­posed meet­ings.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “Ul­ti­mate­ly, we aim to work with all stake­hold­ers in the best in­ter­ests of our coun­try and its cit­i­zens. Re­spect­ful­ly, this can on­ly be achieved by widen­ing the pool of en­ti­ties and in­di­vid­u­als to be in­clud­ed in dis­cus­sions with the Gov­ern­ment and the Op­po­si­tion.”

She said the ef­fort must be a gen­uine at­tempt at co­op­er­a­tion. The Op­po­si­tion leader said she feared that if more stake­hold­ers are omit­ted, cit­i­zens may per­ceive the ef­fort as a Gov­ern­ment pub­lic re­la­tions pro­mo­tion. “Any progress to be made for our pop­u­la­tion’s fu­ture se­cu­ri­ty and safe­ty re­quires all of our so­ci­ety to buy in­to any pro­posed plans and poli­cies,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said all stake­hold­ers who wish to be in­clud­ed and as­sist should be al­lowed to con­tribute pos­i­tive­ly.

”The fight against crime can­not be guid­ed by emo­tion­al re­spons­es to praise or crit­i­cism or ad­her­ence to bi­as­es. It must be guid­ed by clear, com­pelling, log­i­cal, and struc­tured plans op­er­a­tional­ly im­ple­ment­ed by a com­pe­tent man­age­ment team drawn from the broad­est pos­si­ble se­lec­tion of ex­perts.”

UNC’s pro­pos­als

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said af­ter re­ceipt of the Gov­ern­ment’s an­ti-crime pro­pos­als and re­spons­es from stake­hold­ers, an agen­da can be craft­ed and a date sched­uled for the meet­ing.

“We en­vi­sion a col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort that will re­sult in the agree­ment of a clear, im­ple­mentable plan with specifics for mov­ing for­ward. The pro­posed meet­ing will dis­cuss our com­pre­hen­sive plan with achiev­able and mea­sur­able goals,” she said.

A short­list with some of UNC’s gen­er­al strate­gies was at­tached as an ap­pen­dix to the let­ter.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the let­ter said UNC’s con­tri­bu­tions at the meet­ing will cov­er the fol­low­ing:

• Man­age­ment and re­source chal­lenges in agen­cies re­spon­si­ble for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. (Re­mov­ing FEH, equip­ment short­ages in the TTFS, T&T Prison Ser­vice, Im­mi­gra­tion De­part­ment, TTPS, FSC, etc, in­clud­ing man­age­ment by ob­jec­tives, train­ing, re­cruit­ment, etc).

• Leg­isla­tive de­fi­cien­cies in­clude poor­ly draft­ed leg­is­la­tion, a ten­u­ous link be­tween leg­is­la­tion, eg, AGA and crime re­duc­tion, and the Gov­ern­ment’s seem­ing lack of aware­ness that leg­is­la­tion alone can­not solve crime. Sug­ges­tions for new leg­is­la­tion, eg, Stand Your Ground and Home In­va­sion laws. Chal­lenges in the ju­di­cia­ry re­gard­ing ef­fi­cient func­tion­ing.

• Crime pre­ven­tion and crime re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion strate­gies as bud­getary and pol­i­cy pref­er­ences as op­posed to 95 per cent of our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty bud­get al­lo­cat­ed to an­te­dilu­vian crime sup­pres­sion ef­forts like lim­it­ing bail, which can re­sult in mass in­car­cer­a­tion and its at­ten­dant prob­lems.

• Prison rules re­form.

• Spe­cif­ic UNC crime-fight­ing plans as pre­vi­ous­ly ar­tic­u­lat­ed pub­licly and plans to on­ly be dis­cussed pri­vate­ly.

• Po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence in for­mer­ly in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tions and the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus.

More pro­pos­als–Kam­la

The ap­pen­dix to UNC Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s let­ter cit­ed more of UNC’s pro­pos­als:

• Stand your ground laws

• Cre­ation of the of­fence of home in­va­sions

• Al­lowance for the right to bear arms or mod­i­fi­ca­tions to the cur­rent leg­is­la­tion to make ac­quir­ing firearms by law-abid­ing cit­i­zens eas­i­er

• Chang­ing leg­is­la­tion to make gat­ed com­mu­ni­ties eas­i­er

• In­creas­ing the com­ple­ment of mu­nic­i­pal po­lice

• Po­lice of­fi­cers full time in all schools

• Re­struc­tur­ing of the min­istry of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty

• Min­istry of Home Af­fairs

• Min­istry of De­fence

• Min­istry of Jus­tice

• In­crease in re­tire­ment age for t&t de­fence force to bring it in line with • Diplo­ma, un­der­grad­u­ate, and post­grad­u­ate de­grees in polic­ing for re­cruits com­bined with a po­lice ap­pren­tice­ship pro­gramme

• Pre-tri­al de­ten­tion and bail re­form

• In­di­vid­ual risk and fi­nan­cial as­sess­ments

• Min­i­mum se­cu­ri­ty de­ten­tion cen­tres

• Law to pre­vent in­car­cer­a­tion of non-vi­o­lent drug of­fend­ers (ad­dicts)

• An­kle bracelets and house ar­rest

• State sup­port for chil­dren of in­car­cer­at­ed peo­ple

• Fund for chil­dren who have lost one or both par­ents to crime

• Re­vamp­ing of the wit­ness pro­tec­tion pro­gramme

• Con­struc­tion of a foren­sic sci­ence com­plex &train­ing fa­cil­i­ty at uwi debe cam­pus

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she had al­ways been com­mit­ted to col­lab­o­rat­ing with the Gov­ern­ment on mat­ters of na­tion­al sig­nif­i­cance, es­pe­cial­ly crime-re­lat­ed mat­ters.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said that since 2015, agents of the UNC or her­self had com­mu­ni­cat­ed to the Gov­ern­ment on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions re­quest­ing meet­ings to col­lab­o­rate on crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tives.

“In ad­di­tion, be­tween 2015 and 2023, the UNC has of­fered pro­pos­als, ad­vice, and sug­ges­tions for an­ti-crime ini­tia­tives on nu­mer­ous oc­ca­sions both in­side and out­side of the Par­lia­ment. The facts of our vig­i­lance and sug­ges­tions in the fight against crime and our un­heed­ed calls to your gov­ern­ment have been pub­lic for many years.

“Con­trary to false nar­ra­tives of leg­isla­tive ob­struc­tion by the UNC, Hansard ev­i­dence that the UNC posed no ob­sta­cle to about 35 bills re­lat­ed to the crime that have passed through the Par­lia­ment. This is in­con­tro­vert­ible proof that we have sup­port­ed your Gov­ern­ment in the Par­lia­ment to act against crime.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar who said the UNC was placed here to be “the eyes, the ears, the voic­es, and hands and feet of the peo­ple”, told the Prime Min­is­ter, “This ser­vice re­quires me to be forth­right with you. So, I must point out that in your let­ter, the words ‘crim­i­nal el­e­ments that are in­creas­ing­ly em­bold­ened’ are the near­est you got to de­scribe a so­ci­ety in the throes of mass mur­der, home in­va­sions, and grue­some­ness nev­er seen be­fore. Call­ing mass mur­der by its re­al name, mass mur­der, is not palat­able. Still, your let­ter is in the pub­lic do­main, and I must cor­rect the words that ig­nore the stag­ger­ing bru­tal­i­ty of life in Trinidad and To­ba­go.