DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine has un­veiled plans to use fa­cial recog­ni­tion to track down crim­i­nals, as part of a plan to rid the is­land of il­le­gal firearms and gun-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence.

Au­gus­tine said yes­ter­day that his ad­min­is­tra­tion places the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of To­bag­o­ni­ans at the top of its pri­or­i­ties, as “any good thing done will be un­sus­tain­able and un­pro­duc­tive in an un­safe, un­se­cured To­ba­go.”

He said the THA is pre­pared to do what­ev­er is nec­es­sary to stop the cur­rent trend of vi­o­lence.

How­ev­er, there were hard­ly any new plans an­nounced in his pre­sen­ta­tion, as he re­capped ini­tia­tives an­nounced on May 17, one of which was the im­me­di­ate re­in­state­ment of the Com­mu­ni­ty Safe­ty Pro­gramme with the tagline: “When you are safe, I am safe.”

The Di­vi­sion of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Youth De­vel­op­ment and Sport will man­age the pro­gramme and will de­vel­op projects re­lat­ed to:

1) The mo­bil­is­ing, or­gan­is­ing and em­pow­er­ing of com­mu­ni­ties to col­lec­tive­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly par­tic­i­pate in the pro­mo­tion and man­age­ment of their safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty

2) The es­tab­lish­ment of com­mu­ni­ty ser­vices sup­port sec­re­tari­ats in all com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres and mul­ti-pur­pose fa­cil­i­ties

3) The build­ing of trust and con­fi­dence path­ways be­tween com­mu­ni­ties and law en­force­ment agen­cies

4) The de­vel­op­ment and im­ple­men­ta­tion of co-cre­at­ed com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty plans de­signed and en­gi­neered on the unique risk pro­file of each com­mu­ni­ty

5) Com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty ral­lies and events

6) The es­tab­lish­ment of a frame­work from the build­ing of safer com­mu­ni­ties through en­vi­ron­men­tal de­signs and the de­vel­op­ment of smart city tech­nolo­gies such as fa­cial recog­ni­tion

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he said in the next few months, the THA would es­tab­lish a De­part­ment of Pub­lic Safe­ty and Se­cu­ri­ty in the Of­fice of the Chief Sec­re­tary that that will amal­ga­mate all units, agen­cies and de­part­ments with core pub­lic safe­ty func­tions.

As for the es­tab­lish­ment of the pre­vi­ous­ly promised THA po­lice unit, Au­gus­tine said a le­gal re­view has been com­plet­ed to­wards its im­ple­men­ta­tion. He said the As­sem­bly will next con­duct a pub­lic safe­ty au­dit to in­form the in­sti­tu­tion­al de­sign and op­er­a­tion of the de­part­ment.

How­ev­er, he in­sist­ed the THA would not cease to col­lab­o­rate with na­tion­al law en­force­ment agen­cies.

To­ba­go’s mur­der rate has steadi­ly in­creased over the past years, cre­at­ing alarm on the oth­er­wise peace­ful is­land. So far this year, 10 peo­ple have been killed, while last year’s fi­nal toll stood at 14. Most of the mur­ders were com­mit­ted with firearms.