Rose­marie Sant

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon ad­mits he was "not com­fort­able with the re­sults so far with re­gard to the mur­der rate," and he wants po­lice of­fi­cers to "get out of the po­lice sta­tion," telling of­fi­cers "your pres­ence is what will act as a de­ter­rent."

The min­is­ter al­so dis­missed calls for a lim­it­ed state of emer­gency, say­ing it was not nec­es­sary as he trusts the "law en­force­ment agen­cies" to bring crime down.

Dil­lon said he un­der­stood the con­text in which the re­cent call by the Ch­agua­nas, Cou­va/Pt Lisas and Pe­nal/Debe Cham­bers was made for a lim­it­ed state of emer­gency.

"I am very much con­scious of the type of mur­ders and crimes tak­ing place right now. I am not un­der­min­ing the state of af­fairs we are in right now. I am not say­ing there isn't a rea­son, but what do they mean by a lim­it­ed state of emer­gency?" He said he was not sure if they are talk­ing about lim­it­ed in terms of time or ge­og­ra­phy.

Dil­lon said sec­tion eight of the Con­sti­tu­tion was clear on when a state of emer­gency should be im­posed by the Pres­i­dent. The coun­try must be in a state of war, there must be a nat­ur­al dis­as­ter or in a state where the coun­try was un­der threat.

"A state of emer­gency," he said, means, "you have ex­haust­ed all oth­er meth­ods." But Dil­lon said, "I still have trust in the law en­force­ment agen­cies in bring­ing crime down."

Asked the ba­sis for his trust at a time when cit­i­zens are cry­ing out for ac­tion in the face of spi­ralling crime, Dil­lon said, "My trust to a large ex­tent is based on the large amount of per­sons with­in the agen­cies who con­tin­ue to work day in and day out."

He said the ma­jor­i­ty of per­sons in law en­force­ment are "work­ing as­sid­u­ous­ly." They are putting in a lot of time and ef­fort.

"They are the ones who have to de­liv­er. They are in the op­er­a­tional en­vi­ron­ment."

Dil­lon said there was need for "a num­ber of tar­get­ed op­er­a­tions," and wants law en­force­ment agen­cies to "fo­cus on the small num­ber bent on cre­at­ing hav­oc."

In a tele­vi­sion in­ter­view, Dil­lon said, "The po­lice can­not be all over, but they must be as much as pos­si­ble in ar­eas where we con­sid­er there was a big threat. Po­lice can­not stay in the con­fines of a po­lice sta­tion, get out of the po­lice sta­tion, be present, your pres­ence in com­mu­ni­ties is what will act as a de­ter­rent."

In the first 33 days of the year there have been 54 mur­ders.

In ear­ly Jan­u­ary, short­ly be­fore leav­ing this coun­try for­mer US Am­bas­sador John Estra­da said if he was in charge of the Po­lice Ser­vice he would fire him­self in the face of a spi­ralling crime prob­lem.

In re­sponse, act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams said he saw no rea­son to re­sign. He said he did not base his per­for­mance alone on mur­ders.

"I will be the first per­son to walk if I am dis­sat­is­fied with the ef­fort that I am putting in and the re­sults that I'm get­ting. If mur­der was the on­ly crime which oc­curs in T&T I would have re­signed," Williams said then.

Dil­lon would not give a fail or pass mark on the ef­forts to bring mur­der down but said yes­ter­day "mur­der is the barom­e­ter by which we are mea­sured and so our ef­forts are tar­get­ed against bring­ing down that mur­der rate."

Asked whether he felt pow­er­less to hire or fire in the Po­lice Ser­vice, Dil­lon said, "I am not the man­ag­er of the Po­lice Ser­vice. That is the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, the min­is­ter does not man­age and does not have the right to hire or fire."

He re­called at­tempts made by his gov­ern­ment to change the man­age­ment of the Po­lice Ser­vice short­ly af­ter com­ing in­to pow­er, "those at­tempts were stymied by the Op­po­si­tion. They took it to court. We have seen that they went against the Bail Act which was deemed null and void."

Dil­lon said as soon as the Bail Act fell down Ker­lan "Mice­man" George, who was killed out­side the Mara­cas/St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion last month, was re­leased on bail and went back to a life of crime. He said the Gov­ern­ment needs to have the "Op­po­si­tion on board, give sup­port." He said crime was "not on­ly for one en­ti­ty" it re­quires an in­ter-de­pen­dence ap­proach.

FIVE STRATE­GIC PIL­LARS

Min­is­ter Dil­lon said he has ar­tic­u­lat­ed to Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Agen­cies that gov­ern­ment was pre­pared to strength­en five strate­gic pil­lars in the fight against crime.

These are: "pre­dic­tion-which is in fact in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing we feel there is a weak­ness, de­ter­rent, de­tec­tion, pros­e­cu­tion, and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, those are al­so ar­eas we can use to mea­sure the agen­cies per­for­mance," he said.

Pre­dic­tion, he said, al­lows the agen­cies act­ing on in­tel­li­gence to say in ad­vance what the crim­i­nal el­e­ment in­tends to do "so we can take ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tion."

In terms of de­ter­rent, he said, this was where "we en­sure that the law en­force­ment agen­cies, the po­lice and De­fence Force are man­ag­ing re­sources in a way that gives cit­i­zens a sense of se­cu­ri­ty and com­fort."

On the is­sue of de­tec­tion, Dil­lon said, this was "how can we as a gov­ern­ment and I as min­is­ter as­sist with the re­sources re­quired to im­prove de­tec­tion and pros­e­cu­tion."

Dil­lon al­so said there was need to im­prove the court and ju­di­cial process. He said "we have peo­ple in re­mand yard 12-15 more years wait­ing on tri­al, we have to look at the Ju­di­cia­ry. If you com­mit a crime and you know next week you go­ing to tri­al that is a de­ter­rent," he said.

Dil­lon said he will con­tin­ue to do his best to deal with crime.

"I will do my best and let God do the rest," he said.