Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Or­gan­ised crim­i­nals have ex­pand­ed their tech­no­log­i­cal ar­tillery to ex­e­cute crime be­hind the backs of law en­force­ment of­fi­cers.How­ev­er, crime-fight­ing strate­gies, in­clud­ing com­put­er crime scene re-en­act­ments, shoeprint analy­sis, foren­sic black light analy­sis and psy­cho­log­i­cal pro­fil­ing are still not utilised by lo­cal po­lice of­fi­cers.

High-tech equip­ment such as panoram­ic cam­eras, 360-de­gree crime scene room scan­ners, de­vices to match bul­let cas­ings like fin­ger­prints and a high de­f­i­n­i­tion im­pres­sion analyser are avail­able on the in­ter­na­tion­al mar­ket but not in T&T.This is why calls are now be­ing made for the Gov­ern­ment to wage war on the crim­i­nals us­ing ad­vanced tech­nol­o­gy to im­prove T&T's abysmal crime de­tec­tion rate of less than ten per cent.

In an in­ter­view last week, for­mer as­sis­tant com­mis­sion­er of po­lice Win­ston Coop­er said crim­i­nals were ahead of the game in their use of tech­nol­o­gy. He said a reg­istry of all sex of­fend­ers in T&T still has not yet been es­tab­lished."I am dis­ap­point­ed by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice. They have let me down bad­ly be­cause every­thing has fall­en apart since I left. High­ly-trained foren­sic crime-fight­ing of­fi­cers are no longer part of the team," Coop­er said.

He added that a se­nior com­put­er CCTV an­a­lyst who re­turned to Trinidad af­ter work­ing abroad for years, has not been able to find work. Coop­er said while ex­ist­ing leg­is­la­tion was suf­fi­cient to deal with crime, im­ple­men­ta­tion of crime strate­gies con­tin­ues to be a ma­jor prob­lem.

Mean­while, foren­sic pathol­o­gist Dr Va­lerie Alexan­drov said the use of foren­sics meth­ods in ev­i­dence gath­er­ing can help po­lice in their war against the crim­i­nals. He said there were de­lays in pro­cess­ing ev­i­dence be­cause the Foren­sic Sci­ences Cen­tre in St James was closed on week­ends.

"De­tec­tion of crime de­pends on time and how fast we can process ev­i­dence to point the po­lice in the right di­rec­tion. The whole process is up­side down. Foren­sic pathol­o­gists are not called on crime scenes and if some­one is killed on the week­end, we have to wait un­til Mon­day or Tues­day to do the au­top­sy," he said.

In the mean­time, Alexan­drov said the body can be tam­pered with as it is lodged in the hos­pi­tal mor­tu­ary or fu­ner­al home. He called for more train­ing of po­lice of­fi­cers in foren­sic method­ol­o­gy say­ing this may be one of the ways to solve crime.

New crime-fight­ing tech­nol­o­gy com­ing

How­ev­er, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Gary Grif­fith said im­proved tech­nol­o­gy are be­ing utilised in the crime fight."Our plan is to op­ti­mise the use of tech­nol­o­gy and in­for­ma­tion man­age­ment. We are in an era where crime is be­com­ing more tech­no­log­i­cal­ly in­ten­sive; crim­i­nals are find­ing new ways to use tech­nol­o­gy to com­mit crimes. As such, tech­nol­o­gy is very im­por­tant in our crime-fight­ing strate­gies," Grif­fith said.

"The use of GPS-equipped cel­lu­lar tele­phones and ve­hi­cles in pa­trol man­age­ment, CCTV cam­eras in strate­gic lo­ca­tions are a few ex­am­ples. There are oth­er ar­eas where tech­nol­o­gy is used in crime in­ves­ti­ga­tion; how­ev­er these can­not be dis­closed for se­cu­ri­ty rea­sons."He said train­ing re­mains high on the TTPS's agen­da.

"Of­fi­cers con­tin­ue to be trained on a reg­u­lar ba­sis to deal with the com­plex­i­ties as­so­ci­at­ed with ma­jor homi­cides and oth­er se­ri­ous crimes such as sex­u­al of­fences, cy­ber-crime, fraud, do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, gang vi­o­lence, hu­man traf­fick­ing, mon­ey laun­der­ing. These train­ing ses­sions are con­duct­ed both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly there­by in­creas­ing the of­fi­cers ca­pac­i­ty to ef­fec­tive­ly in­ves­ti­gate these of­fences," Grif­fith said.

He added that of­fi­cers are al­so re­ceiv­ing train­ing in crime scene in­ves­ti­ga­tions, adding there are ten cas­es be­fore the courts.Dur­ing his re­cent of­fi­cial vis­it to the Unit­ed King­dom, Grif­fith said he met with a num­ber of UK se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­nies, to pro­vide land and mar­itime as­sets and equip­ment for the De­fence Force and the TTPS.

"I had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to view ar­moured ve­hi­cles, hov­er­crafts and in­ter­cep­tors. The hov­er­craft has the ca­pa­bil­i­ty to ma­noeu­vre in swamps, rivers and shal­low wa­ter ar­eas that are in­ac­ces­si­ble to the reg­u­lar Coast Guard ves­sel. It can op­er­ate over flat sur­faces in­clud­ing mud, logs and de­bris and in most rugged ter­rain" he said. Po­lice sources said these craft can be used on the south west­ern coast­line where drugs are brought in on a dai­ly ba­sis.

Grif­fith al­so said four in­ter­cep­tors will be pur­chased with­in the next year to as­sist in pur­suit and pa­trol. He said ar­moured ve­hi­cles will al­so be pur­chased and used to trans­port var­i­ous cal­i­bres of weapons for sol­diers who will be op­er­at­ing them in high risk ar­eas.With re­gard to counter ter­ror­ism and covert op­er­a­tions, Grif­fith said he will dis­man­tle gangs and transna­tion­al crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties by putting the law en­force­ment of­fi­cers to com­bat any pos­si­ble in­sur­gency that may oc­cur.

"The par­tic­u­lar ar­eas that will be tar­get­ed are Ri­ot Con­trol, prop­er es­tab­lish­ment of a Counter Ter­ror­ism Unit and train­ing, as well as de­vel­op­ment of HUMINT (Hu­man In­tel­li­gence) ca­pa­bil­i­ties," Grif­fith said.He al­so promised to boost ex­ist­ing K-9 units."To fur­ther com­pli­ment the ac­qui­si­tion of these mil­i­tary as­sets and in­crease the ca­pa­bil­i­ty at ports and pos­si­ble points of en­try, a com­pre­hen­sive au­dit of the K9 Units will be un­der­tak­en to es­tab­lish a sus­tain­able pro­gramme," he said.

Grif­fith said he al­so in­tend­ed to work with UK foren­sic sci­ence com­pa­ny CAR­I­FOR, to as­sist in strength­en­ing the pro­ce­dures of lo­cal foren­sic lab­o­ra­to­ries, in an ef­fort to im­prove the de­tec­tion and con­vic­tion rate of mur­ders.He al­so added that CCTVs will be locked in­to all Rapid Re­sponse Unit ve­hi­cles to pro­vide re­al time in­for­ma­tion to the Op­er­a­tional Cen­tre.