While most of the na­tion­al at­ten­tion is on two damn­ing re­ports on abuse at chil­dren’s homes span­ning a quar­ter-cen­tu­ry, se­ri­ous fo­cus should al­so be placed on three re­ports by the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) that were re­cent­ly laid in the Sen­ate.

The 2019, 2020 and 2021 re­ports from the in­tel­li­gence agency con­tain some stark warn­ings about the dead­ly gang sub­cul­ture which con­tin­ues to evolve and be­come in­creas­ing­ly deeply en­trenched across the coun­try.

It will be at T&T’s per­il if these warn­ings about the threats to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty posed by these crim­i­nal gangs are ig­nored.

The emer­gence of “younger, more vi­o­lent lead­ers” and new­er gangs that are “an­tic­i­pat­ed to be more volatile as they try to es­tab­lish them­selves re­sult­ing in an in­crease in mur­ders, in­juries, shoot­ings and oth­er vi­o­lent crimes” are mat­ters that should be ad­dressed ur­gent­ly.

The SSA re­ports re­veal an un­der­ground cul­ture in­flu­enced by zess­er mu­sic to the ex­tent that dur­ing the COVID-19 lock­downs and pub­lic health re­stric­tions “sev­er­al gangs host­ed pri­vate ‘zess’ par­ties, which were char­ac­terised by the use of am­phet­a­mine pills, syn­thet­ic mar­i­jua­na, ed­i­bles and co­caine. The younger de­mo­graph­ic is al­so re­flect­ed in these par­ties.”

Fe­male mem­ber­ship has in­creased and the range of il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties in which lo­cal gangs are in­volved has ex­pand­ed con­sid­er­ably to in­clude quar­ry­ing, fraud-schem­ing, mon­ey-laun­der­ing, black-mar­ket sale and re­sale of US cur­ren­cy, cop­per theft, par­ty and events pro­mo­tion, or­gan­ised rob­bery, mo­tor ve­hi­cle lar­ce­ny, mar­i­jua­na traf­fick­ing, coun­ter­feit­ing, hu­man smug­gling and il­le­gal gam­bling.

It is dis­turb­ing that these crim­i­nal gangs have been able to de­vel­op and ex­pand their un­der­ground ac­tiv­i­ties. This rais­es ques­tions about the ca­pac­i­ty of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) to bat­tle these crim­i­nal el­e­ments. This be­gins with a prop­er un­der­stand­ing of the na­ture of the close to 130 gangs op­er­at­ing in T&T and their links to transna­tion­al drug and gun traf­fick­ing.

The find­ings in the lat­est SSA re­ports sug­gest a pro­lif­er­a­tion of this dan­ger­ous crim­i­nal sub­cul­ture and very lit­tle progress by law en­force­ment to sup­press and erad­i­cate these en­ti­ties in the years since 2000 when the TTPS of­fi­cial­ly record­ed the first gang-re­lat­ed mur­ders. The sit­u­a­tion is much worse now with more dis­af­fect­ed, un­der-ed­u­cat­ed young men and women see­ing these crim­i­nal or­ga­ni­za­tions as the best way to im­prove their eco­nom­ic and so­cial prospects

More ef­fort and re­sources need to be put in­to train­ing and equip­ping po­lice of­fi­cers for an­ti-gang law en­force­ment.

How­ev­er, more than ag­gres­sive an­ti-gang polic­ing is need­ed to ad­dress this prob­lem.

It is time to roll out all those long-promised com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment ini­tia­tives aimed at the hot spot com­mu­ni­ties where gangs and the neg­a­tive zess­er in­flu­ence con­tin­ue to thrive. Un­less al­ter­na­tives are of­fered to the in­creas­ing num­bers of young peo­ple who are be­ing drawn in­to the gang­ster lifestyle, they will not be en­cour­aged to leave the gangs and turn their lives around.

In tan­dem with the crim­i­nal jus­tice so­lu­tions, which need to be ful­ly de­ployed to counter gang ac­tiv­i­ty, there should be a range of ed­u­ca­tion, pre­ven­tion, and train­ing ini­tia­tives.

In this coun­try, where too of­ten re­ports are left to gath­er dust, the SSA re­port should in­spire a range of in­ter­ven­tions to break the cy­cle of crim­i­nal­i­ty in which T&T has been trapped for too long. The warn­ings in the SSA re­port must be heed­ed.