Geisha Kow­lessar

Gov­ern­ment's Com­mu­ni­ty Com­fort Pa­trol (CCP) pro­gramme, an ini­tia­tive to as­sist the Po­lice Ser­vice in the fight against crime, has been ex­pand­ed at a tune of ap­prox­i­mate­ly $4.5 mil­lion.

At a press brief­ing at the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (NOC) build­ing at Knowsley build­ing, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day, NOC's ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Garvin Heera said some 250 CCP of­fi­cers would be de­ployed to 15 res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ties, in­clud­ing two in To­ba­go.

Heera added that they would not be placed in high risk ar­eas.

Asked how the res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ties were cho­sen Heera said:

"There are high-risk ar­eas which are al­ready po­liced and there is a high vis­i­bil­i­ty of po­lice of­fi­cers and in some in­stances mem­bers of the De­fence Force to pro­vide the sup­port.

"The CCP was ini­ti­at­ed to fill the gap es­pe­cial­ly in our res­i­den­tial ar­eas with­in our com­mu­ni­ties so that while we have that polic­ing tak­ing place in some of the high-risk ar­eas there would al­so be some ef­fort of pa­trols and that com­mu­ni­ty in­ter­ac­tion...those were the ar­eas that we looked at.

"It was based ba­si­cal­ly on a threat and risk and in­ten­tion­al­ly it is to be ex­pand­ed through­out T&T as we move for­ward with the project."

On the is­sue of bul­let and stab-proof vests, he said such mea­sures were al­ready in the pipeline.

Kei­th Re­naund, di­rec­tor of the Of­fice of Law En­force­ment Pol­i­cy (OLEP), said it was uni­ver­sal­ly ac­cept­ed that law en­force­ment did not have the ca­pac­i­ty to deal with all its core is­sues and as a re­sult there has been a mush­room­ing of polic­ing ser­vices.

"In T&T tra­di­tion­al­ly we have had oth­er sup­port ser­vices, like the Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice, the Tran­sit Po­lice Unit, Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny, Par­lia­ment po­lice, and we have the traf­fic war­dens all in an ef­fort to sup­port the na­tion­al ser­vice which would not have the ca­pac­i­ty to deal with all the polic­ing ser­vices which they have do on a dai­ly ba­sis," Re­naund said.

He said it was in that con­text that the pro­gramme was ini­ti­at­ed.

In giv­ing an overview of the mea­sure OLEP's deputy di­rec­tor Cur­tis Belford said af­ter a four- month tri­al pe­ri­od last year it was de­cid­ed that the CCP would then be on stream for one year.

He said while the CCP's of­fi­cers do not car­ry li­censed guns, they did have the pow­ers of ar­rests pro­vid­ed by the Crim­i­nal Law Act Chap 10.04.

In out­lin­ing the du­ties of a CCP of­fi­cer Belford said these in­clud­ed:

�2 Make an ar­rest where they sus­pect some­one to be in the act of com­mit­ting an ar­restable of­fence.

�2 Make an ar­rest where they sus­pect some­one to have com­mit­ted an ar­restable of­fence.

�2 Use rea­son­able force in the pre­ven­tion of crime or in ef­fect­ing or as­sist­ing in the law­ful ar­rest of of­fend­ers or sus­pect­ed of­fend­ers.

The pro­gramme is ad­min­is­tered by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry who has con­tract­ed the Pro­tec­tive Agen­cies Ltd, Amal­ga­mat­ed Se­cu­ri­ty Ser­vices Ltd and the In­no­v­a­tive Se­cu­ri­ty Tech­nolo­gies Ltd to pro­vide the nec­es­sary pa­trol ser­vices, Belford said.

Re­gard­ing the hir­ing of CCP of­fi­cers, he said, they must first be ac­cred­it­ed pri­or to their en­gage­ment and de­ploy­ment by their re­spec­tive com­pa­nies.

The ac­cred­i­ta­tion process is con­duct­ed by the OLEP in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty net­work com­mis­sion of be­half of the min­istry.

pa­trols

Res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ties to be pa­trolled by CCP:

�2 Diego Mar­tin, Pe­tit Val­ley and Care­nage

�2 Port-of-Spain and St Ann's

�2 San Juan/Barataria

�2 St Joseph, St Au­gus­tine and Val­sayn

�2 Tu­na­puna and Trinci­ty

�2 D'Abadie and Ari­ma

�2 Ch­agua­nas/Cou­va

�2 San Fer­nan­do/La Ro­maine

�2 Fyz­abad and Siparia

�2 Pe­nal and Debe

�2 Point Fortin and Ce­dros

�2 Ma­yaro and Rio Claro

�2 To­co and Man­zanil­la

�2 To­ba­go East

�2 To­ba­go West

Emer­gency Car­ni­val fa­cil­i­ty

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With Car­ni­val in full gear Heera said there were plans to set up at emer­gency med­ical fa­cil­i­ty at NOC.

"We have an ini­tia­tive which we will con­duct for the Car­ni­val pe­ri­od which is a med­ical sup­port fa­cil­i­ty pro­vid­ed by the CCP of­fi­cers and al­so the Red Cross," Heera said.

That, he added, would of­fer ad­di­tion­al com­fort to cit­i­zens, es­pe­cial­ly while they en­joy the mas and take part in the rev­ellery.