Crime is an al­most dai­ly front page head­lin­er lead­ing to pub­lic de­mands for ac­tion by the Prime Min­is­ter. No one is im­mune from the ef­fects of crime whether di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly. The di­rect im­pact can be quan­ti­fied in lost lives and or prop­er­ty. The in­di­rect im­pact is less mea­sur­able and per­haps more im­por­tant. These ef­fects in­clude dam­age to the na­tion­al psy­che and a coars­en­ing of the spir­it which is bur­den­some and neg­a­tive­ly im­pacts con­fi­dence in every re­spect.

The 2024 Bud­get speech promised more re­cruits to the TTPS, boots on the ground. Bare­ly three months lat­er in Jan­u­ary 2024 dur­ing a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing in San Juan, the prime min­is­ter promised that the Gov­ern­ment would do what it must to ad­dress crime.

He an­nounced that $100 mil­lion would be pro­vid­ed to the T&T De­fence Force to hire re­cruits, re­serve and re­tired of­fi­cers as a com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tive to fight crim­i­nal el­e­ments in some com­mu­ni­ties which he de­scribed as “nurs­eries for crim­i­nal con­duct.” This an­nounce­ment has not yet borne fruit.

Fol­low­ing the bloody week­end two weeks ago, the TTPS bus­ied it­self, with high vis­i­bil­i­ty and road­blocks aplen­ty. The Prime Min­is­ter’s ap­point­ment of se­nior coun­sel Kei­th Scot­land as an ad­di­tion­al min­is­ter in the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry is a be­lat­ed ac­knowl­edge­ment that Min­is­ter Hinds need­ed help. Min­is­ter Scot­land will take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for polic­ing, of­fend­er man­age­ment, il­le­gal im­mi­grants, mon­ey laun­der­ing drug traf­fick­ing and drug en­force­ment. No doubt, Min­is­ter Scot­land will al­so be a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil mem­ber.

Cit­i­zens wel­come any change that promis­es crime re­duc­tion. How­ev­er, this ap­point­ment comes with on­ly one year left in the life of this ad­min­is­tra­tion. This move can be viewed as a demon­stra­ble sense of ur­gency. The cyn­i­cal view is that it is an act of des­per­a­tion, a plas­ter to boost con­fi­dence since noth­ing else has worked.

In the last 20 years, we have had a man­age­ment ex­pert, a busi­ness­man, three for­mer mil­i­tary per­son­nel, three at­tor­neys and a diplo­mat in the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry. Any re­duc­tion in the mur­der rate was short-term due in part to two states of emer­gency pe­ri­ods and COVID-19.

One must con­clude there is no quick fix to re­duce crime. Vi­o­lent crime and mur­der matched the growth in na­tion­al in­come. The fight to main­tain lifestyles and in­come has sharp­ened the lev­el of vi­o­lence since eco­nom­ic growth has slowed. Re­duc­ing vi­o­lent crime is a long and ar­du­ous task re­quir­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion and co­or­di­nat­ed ac­tion on many fronts and amongst in­sti­tu­tions and arms of the state.

The front line to fight­ing, de­tect­ing, re­duc­ing crime and deal­ing with of­fend­ers are all im­prove­ment projects that must be ad­dressed if last­ing change is to oc­cur. This re­quires in­sti­tu­tion­al change from with­in, like the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem and the TTPS for ex­am­ple.

Change in poli­cies, laws, or­gan­i­sa­tions, peo­ple, process­es, and sys­tems. Cit­i­zens al­so need to do their part. These changes re­quire pos­i­tive re­in­force­ment through con­fi­dence-build­ing mea­sures and the con­tin­u­ous cel­e­bra­tion of small wins. Lead­er­ship, man­age­ment and clear strate­gic, op­er­a­tional and tac­ti­cal re­spons­es at every lev­el are crit­i­cal to guid­ing this process.

These mul­ti-year ac­tiv­i­ties will take time even if they are well de­signed and well-im­ple­ment­ed. To en­sure con­ti­nu­ity and the pro­grammes re­main in place should ad­min­is­tra­tions change, the po­lit­i­cal par­ties must come to a com­mon un­der­stand­ing.

As wel­come as this ap­point­ment may be, there is a lim­it to what one man can achieve in the months be­fore a gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign be­gins. Mr Scot­land may be a good crim­i­nal lawyer, but he is not Scot­land Yard. Su­per­men or per­son­al­i­ties can­not save us. On­ly clear think­ing, fo­cused ac­tion and team­work can.