By April of this year, T&T had seen 175 mur­ders com­mit­ted. This rep­re­sent­ed a 45 per cent in­crease on the same pe­ri­od five years ago. In fact, of the pre­ced­ing 64 months, on­ly 11 (17 per cent) av­er­aged less than a mur­der a day. On­ly one of these months has come since the end of 20151.

Over this same pe­ri­od, on­ly 2014-2015 saw an an­nu­al re­duc­tion in mur­ders. Per­haps that year of­fend­ers took Ker­win Du Bois and Ravi B lit­er­al­ly when they sang ‘Over­do­ing It’. Ei­ther way, the respite was short-lived.

The gov­ern­ment and the po­lice ser­vice say they are do­ing their best to rem­e­dy the sit­u­a­tion. It is be­yond the scope of this ar­ti­cle to judge their progress or make pol­i­cy rec­om­men­da­tions.

In­stead it fo­cus­es on the role of busi­ness­es and in­ter­ven­tions they can make, for their own good and for the good of the coun­try.

Crime as a symp­tom

Be­fore dis­cussing pri­vate sec­tor crime in­ter­ven­tions, it is im­por­tant to un­der­stand that many forms of crime are be­lieved to be symp­toms of pre­vail­ing so­cio-eco­nom­ic con­di­tions and cul­ture.

In 2017, Pro­fes­sor David Can­ter—an in­ter­na­tion­al­ly renowned ap­plied so­cial re­searcher and crime psy­chol­o­gist —stat­ed, “The cen­tral mes­sage that emerges from all these stud­ies is that crim­i­nal­i­ty is an in­te­gral part of how so­ci­ety, and its cul­ture, is con­struct­ed. Think­ing of crime as gen­er­at­ed by ab­nor­mal in­di­vid­u­als that is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of law en­force­ment and the ju­di­cial sys­tem is to ig­nore the en­dem­ic process­es that sus­tain it and those who deal with it on a dai­ly ba­sis2”.

Again, “Think­ing of crime as gen­er­at­ed by ab­nor­mal in­di­vid­u­als that is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of law en­force­ment and the ju­di­cial sys­tem is to ig­nore the en­dem­ic process­es that sus­tain it and those who deal with it on a dai­ly ba­sis.”

Com­pare this with the view of many in our so­ci­ety. For ex­am­ple, in ear­ly 2018 a promi­nent com­men­ta­tor opined pub­licly that the pri­vate sec­tor has no role to play in help­ing to solve the is­sue of crime, it is pure­ly the gov­ern­ment’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

Where fo­cus is need­ed

So, if many forms of crim­i­nal­i­ty are symp­toms, what are the con­tribut­ing so­cio-eco­nom­ic and cul­tur­al fac­tors? Pover­ty will nat­u­ral­ly come to mind, though re­search sug­gests phe­nom­e­na such as eco­nom­ic in­equal­i­ty, in­equal­i­ty of op­por­tu­ni­ties and a lack of so­cial mo­bil­i­ty are more im­por­tant than the mere pres­ence of pover­ty. Thus, ef­forts fo­cused on sim­ply re­duc­ing pover­ty may not have the de­sired im­pact.

This hints to­wards a role for the pri­vate sec­tor. By their very na­ture, busi­ness­es aim to gen­er­ate ever-in­creas­ing wealth, which may help re­duce pover­ty. But more im­por­tant­ly, busi­ness­es can di­rect­ly af­fect eco­nom­ic in­equal­i­ty, in­equal­i­ty of op­por­tu­ni­ty and a lack of so­cial mo­bil­i­ty through their op­er­at­ing poli­cies and prac­tices as well as CSR ini­tia­tives.

Op­por­tu­ni­ties aplen­ty

It is im­por­tant to ac­knowl­edge that work is al­ready be­ing done. Many com­pa­nies have com­mit­ted sub­stan­tial time, ef­fort and mon­ey to so­cial chal­lenges. How­ev­er, more can be done and ex­ist­ing ini­tia­tives can be im­proved or scaled to in­crease their im­pact.

Be­low are some ex­am­ples of ac­tions com­pa­nies can take to help the coun­try’s crime sit­u­a­tion.

En­tre­pre­neur­ship and em­ploy­a­bil­i­ty train­ing – These sorts of pro­grams are quite com­mon lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. Usu­al­ly a com­pa­ny will spon­sor or co-de­liv­er a pro­gram in col­lab­o­ra­tion with an NGO, CSO, oth­er busi­ness or gov­ern­ment body. The pro­gramme may pro­vide ben­e­fi­cia­ries with some com­bi­na­tion of em­ploy­a­bil­i­ty skills, life skills, en­tre­pre­neur­ship skills, lit­er­a­cy and fi­nan­cial lit­er­a­cy ed­u­ca­tion, tech­ni­cal train­ing and even men­tor­ship. Projects that en­cour­age the five C’s of pos­i­tive youth de­vel­op­ment (con­nec­tion, con­fi­dence, char­ac­ter, car­ing, and com­pe­tence) are of­ten the most ef­fec­tive in re­duc­ing neg­a­tive be­hav­iour. Or, ac­cord­ing to Pittman et al (2003) “Ef­fec­tive youth en­gage­ment is not just about fix­ing be­hav­iour prob­lems. It’s about build­ing and nur­tur­ing all the be­liefs, be­hav­iours, knowl­edge, at­trib­ut­es and skills that re­sult in a healthy and pro­duc­tive ado­les­cence and adult­hood”.

In­tern­ships and ap­pren­tice­ships

Many com­pa­nies al­ready of­fer in­tern­ships and ap­pren­tice­ships, how­ev­er on­ly a hand­ful proac­tive­ly tar­get at-risk youth or youth in con­flict with the law. It is un­der­stand­able that com­pa­nies may be wary of such ini­tia­tives, but there are nu­mer­ous ex­am­ples of com­pa­nies suc­cess­ful­ly em­brac­ing such pro­grammes.

Since 2011 Brigade Bistro in Lon­don, has run train­ing pro­grams for home­less and at-risk in­di­vid­u­als, cul­mi­nat­ing in six-month ap­pren­tice­ships in the restau­rant’s kitchen. In Italy, In­Galera restau­rant is lo­cat­ed in­side of a jail and open to the pub­lic. The restau­rant is staffed by pris­on­ers who are giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn new skills and de­vel­op their work eth­ic. Back in the UK, large chains such as Greg­gs (a bak­ery), Boots (a phar­ma­cy) and Timp­son (a re­tail­er spe­cial­is­ing in show re­pair and key cut­ting) have ded­i­cat­ed schemes for hir­ing ex-of­fend­ers.

As Trinida­di­an prison con­sul­tant Dr Sum­mer Al­ston-Smith ex­plains, “these in­volve thor­ough re­cruit­ment process­es and work place­ment tri­als based on Re­lease on Tem­po­rary Li­cense, where­by pris­on­ers leave jail dur­ing the day to work and re­turn in the evening. The guar­an­tee of em­ploy­ment pro­vides sta­bil­i­ty to pris­on­ers up­on re­lease, while em­ploy­ers gain ex­treme­ly loy­al staff!”

Be an equal
op­por­tu­ni­ty em­ploy­er

In ad­di­tion to meet­ing all le­gal re­quire­ments, em­ploy­ment prac­tices should em­brace di­ver­si­ty, en­sur­ing the on­ly thing that mat­ters is find­ing the right per­son for the job, ir­re­spec­tive of race, gen­der, age, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, fam­i­ly sit­u­a­tion or so­cial class.

This may re­quire those with re­spon­si­bil­i­ties for re­cruit­ment to un­der­go un­con­scious bias train­ing. Hir­ing process­es may al­so be de­signed so that all ap­pli­cants re­ceive the same treat­ment and en­sure any spe­cial needs ap­pli­cants have those needs met. This fair and equal treat­ment should con­tin­ue through­out each em­ploy­ee’s time with your com­pa­ny, giv­ing every­one a fair chance to learn, de­vel­op and progress in the busi­ness.

Re­duce white col­lar

crime and cor­rup­tion

The causal link be­tween cor­rup­tion, eco­nom­ic in­equal­i­ty and pover­ty have been well known for some time. Re­search by the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund in 1998 found this link to hold across coun­tries with dif­fer­ent growth ex­pe­ri­ences, dif­fer­ent stages of de­vel­op­ment and even us­ing var­i­ous in­dices of cor­rup­tion. Re­spon­dents to pri­ma­ry re­search con­duct­ed by the au­thor in 2017, iden­ti­fied white col­lar crime and cor­rup­tion as the third most im­por­tant so­cio-eco­nom­ic chal­lenge fac­ing T&T, just be­hind vi­o­lent crime and weak pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions. Cor­rup­tion can­not ex­ist with­out will­ing pri­vate sec­tor par­tic­i­pants.

Re­gard­less of the ap­proach tak­en, it is clear the pri­vate sec­tor has a role to play in help­ing solve the prob­lem of crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go. It is al­so clear that com­pa­nies are best able to do so by tar­get­ing the so­cio-eco­nom­ic and cul­tur­al caus­es of crime, rather than crime it­self.

The cur­rent sit­u­a­tion is un­sus­tain­able. The In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank ranks Trinidad and To­ba­go sixth out of 17 Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean coun­tries for an­nu­al costs of crime as a pro­por­tion of GDP. It es­ti­mates our econ­o­my los­es be­tween 2.26 per cent and 3.52 per cent of GDP to crime an­nu­al­ly4. In the cur­rent eco­nom­ic cli­mate, those are loss­es we sim­ply can­not af­ford.

The T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce would like to thank Kyle San­tos, chair of our re­spon­si­ble busi­ness com­mit­tee, for this con­tri­bu­tion. This ar­ti­cle was orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in the Cor­po­rate Sus­tain­abil­i­ty Re­view 2018, from Vir­tu­al­ly Yours T&T Ltd. For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion you may con­tact Kyle at ksan­tos@kyle­san­toscon­sult­ing.com