Last weekend’s murder spree dramatically illustrated the distinction between politics as performance and politics as delivery. The number of murders spiked in sharp contrast to the news conferences of the previous week in Tobago which promised a robust approach.
The “spree” provoked a response designed to demonstrate that all hands were on deck and that the noses of national security personnel were at the proverbial grindstone. The CoP and her team assured the public that they could expect increased police visibility and that all police stations would be on “high alert”. Sensing the gravity of the situation and the need for a response the Prime Minister convened a meeting of the National Security Council on Monday.
Following the meeting, a release from the Office of the Prime Minister said that Dr Rowley called for “a more proactive, intelligence-driven, targeted and robust approach which is focused on those who are known and suspected to be involved in serious criminality.”
The release also noted the deployment of resources in “a coordinated and collaborative manner of sustained joint operations, particularly in areas where there is a known concentration of criminal activity.” These are trite, tired statements that have been used, reused, misused and abused.
Despite the TTPS assertion that serious crimes have been reduced, the murder rate is globally regarded as the most important crime statistic because it involves the loss of life. Therefore, the CoP and the TTPS will be judged by their ability to reduce homicide. The public is alarmed by the obvious inability to address this continuing high murder rate.
In 2008, former National Security Minister Martin Joseph said that crime would worsen before any improvement became visible. Many billions of dollars and 16 years later, sufficient elapsed to evaluate the impact of the 2006 constitutional amendments to give the police the teeth that were said to be missing. The evidence is that the legislative change has brought no improvement. What is missing?
Last Thursday the country learnt that “high police visibility” meant roadblocks on highways and major roads compounding the arduous daily commute into a mess of major traffic jams reminiscent of the”day of total policing”.
This exercise did not focus on those “known and suspected to be involved in serious criminality.” Instead, the practical effect of this unintelligent initiative was to inconvenience and penalise law-abiding citizens heading to work. This ham-fisted demonstration of police power undermined public confidence in the TTPS generating disbelief and derision. It illustrated the absence of any creative problem-solving capacity in the upper echelons of the TTPS.
The murder rate speaks for itself. Citizens neither need nor want empty verbal assurances that do not address the facts on the ground. To paraphrase Einstein, doing or saying the same things repeatedly cannot give a different result. It is impossible to argue that the security services are doing their best as the objective reality suggests the opposite.
The evidence is that the crime-fighting initiatives, as currently configured have failed. Different approaches are necessary. What specific strategies or changes are being proposed to address the high murder rate and overall crime situation?
Fighting crime requires more efficient use of national security resources to achieve better results. Managing these resources requires political will, intelligence, competence, and alignment of the strategic objective. Why isn’t this happening?
