Con­cerned about the high crime rate, the Gov­ern­ment has de­clared crime a pub­lic health emer­gency.

In the com­ing months, the coun­try will be told just how the State in­tends to op­er­a­tionalise and fi­nance this plan to turn cit­i­zens away from crime.

Speak­ing dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in St Ann’s yes­ter­day, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley said the Gov­ern­ment has de­cid­ed to take the step they had been con­tem­plat­ing for some time.

“I can tell you that even though this is be­ing raised by me now, it is not a brand new con­cept or con­cern, what we are do­ing is op­er­a­tional­is­ing a re­sponse to what is in ef­fect a cri­sis,” Row­ley said.

“We have al­ways had crime, we’ve had in­creased lev­els of crime and we have been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing in most re­cent times, in­or­di­nate lev­els of crime and in the most re­cent times, we’re see­ing the brazen­ness, the bold-faced­ness, the im­puni­ty with which some crim­i­nals are op­er­at­ing,” he added.

He said the Na­tion­al Ac­tion Plan will be drawn up by of­fi­cials from the Min­istries of So­cial De­vel­op­ment, Health, Ed­u­ca­tion, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Sport, the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS.)

“The aim is to squeeze the crim­i­nal be­hav­iour, the crim­i­nal con­duct out of the lives of peo­ple but to do so, you can’t leave a vac­u­um, it has to be re­placed by some­thing else,” he said.

Row­ley said this plan will tar­get the youth of the coun­try. He hopes it will fos­ter a gen­er­a­tion who turn away from crim­i­nal­i­ty.

“The ob­jec­tive here is to en­ter the youth pop­u­la­tion at var­i­ous lev­els to be­gin a line of ed­u­ca­tion which should steer peo­ple away from par­tic­i­pa­tion or be­ing de­sen­si­tised.”

The Prime Min­is­ter con­firmed that he met with the act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er over the week­end. He said the meet­ing al­so in­clud­ed the De­fence Force and the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency.

“We dis­cussed the se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies’ re­sponse to what was hap­pen­ing and cer­tain de­ci­sions were made, much of which I can­not dis­cuss with you in pub­lic ex­cept to say that the Po­lice Ser­vice and the De­fence Force and the SSA which are all the team that is fo­cus­ing on what is hap­pen­ing with us, at work. There are some ac­tions tak­ing place and some ac­tions will take place,” Row­ley said.

Asked how the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to fund this en­deav­our, Row­ley said that will be worked out in the com­ing months. He did not rule out seek­ing in­ter­na­tion­al fund­ing to im­ple­ment the ac­tion plan.

Row­ley said dur­ing that meet­ing, he was giv­en an in­di­ca­tion of what was dri­ving the cur­rent crime surge.

“The po­lice are con­vinced the up­surge in crim­i­nal con­duct and the abil­i­ty of per­sons to arm them­selves and chal­lenge the State and up­set the pop­u­la­tion in a way that is hap­pen­ing is sup­port­ed by some short­com­ings of the State with re­spect to the avail­abil­i­ty of sus­tained fund­ing for the crim­i­nal el­e­ment,” he said.

Chief among these was il­le­gal quar­ry­ing, the Prime Min­is­ter said. He vowed there would be a se­ri­ous crack­down on these ac­tiv­i­ties.

FUL re­port 'dis­turb­ing'

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says he has re­ceived the re­port on the Firearms Unit of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS.)

“I have just re­ceived the re­port of the ex­am­i­na­tion of the Firearms Unit of the Po­lice Ser­vice which was be­ing done by a group of per­sons you were told about be­fore. That re­port makes very dis­turb­ing read­ing and notwith­stand­ing the best ef­forts of some of my de­ranged Par­lia­men­tary col­leagues, I in­tend to send that re­port, even be­fore I fin­ish read­ing it, I am go­ing to send it in to the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion and then let the chips fall where they may,” Row­ley said.

He de­clined to share any parts of the doc­u­ment but said the ex­ec­u­tive sum­ma­ry would be laid in Par­lia­ment when it re­opens.