Gail Alexan­der

Life in jail for con­vict­ed gang lead­ers. That's the sen­tence un­der the Gov­ern­ment's an­ti-gang leg­is­la­tion de­signed to clamp down on the 110 gangs which now ex­ist in T&T, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan said yes­ter­day. Ram­lo­gan spoke about the sit­u­a­tion in pi­lot­ing the leg­is­la­tion in the Low­er House. "We're go­ing af­ter the rude boys and the bad boys and the bling cul­ture," he said. Ram­lo­gan said gang mem­bers buy fan­cy cell­phones and cars and lead women astray to join them in crime with their "bling" lifestyle.

The bill fea­tur­ing big fines plus jail terms and wide pow­ers for po­lice re­quires a three-fifths spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty vote for pas­sage. A num­ber of Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion mem­bers were ab­sent yes­ter­day. De­bate con­tin­ues to­mor­row. Ram­lo­gan said the bill was a flag­ship in the Gov­ern­ment's ar­tillery of leg­is­la­tion against ris­ing crime. "...A dai­ly di­et of death, de­spair and de­struc­tion are seen on the front pages of the news­pa­pers every day...ur­gent sur­gi­cal at­ten­tion is re­quired," he added. Say­ing gangs deal in drugs, gun-run­ning, kid­nap­ping, ex­tor­tion, rob­bery, as­sault and rape, Ram­lo­gan not­ed that for­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Mar­tin Joseph once said T&T had 66 gangs and 500 vi­o­lent mem­bers who would "be hunt­ed down."

Ram­lo­gan said the 500 in­stead mul­ti­plied and gangs grew. He said parts of T&T had an un­de­clared state of emer­gency where peo­ple go in­doors by 6 pm fol­low­ing which ban­dits own the streets. Ram­lo­gan said each of the cur­rent 110 gangs–not­ed in po­lice sta­tis­tics–had an av­er­age of 12 mem­bers. He said some were so large that mem­bers num­bered be­tween 50 and 100 as the re­cruit­ment process was very ag­gres­sive and the in­cen­tives they of­fered were very good. "The in­doc­tri­na­tion process to join a gang is such that your have to prove wor­thy by com­mit­ting pet­ty crimes–rob­bery, drugs, rob­bing a maxi," Ram­lo­gan said. "To en­ter the big­ger, bet­ter gangs you have to prove you could mur­der a man or woman in cold blood. They have no re­spect for hu­man life, that is why this leg­is­la­tion has teeth that will bite to the very bone of crime!"

He said some gangs were in­volved in the kid­nap­ping "trade," car theft, steal­ing cell­phones or rap­ing women. Ram­lo­gan said women and chil­dren were the biggest ca­su­al­ties of gangs who preyed on them. "Women can­not work late hours as they can­not trav­el in safe­ty in max­is," he added. He said the bill's reach ex­tend­ed to pro­tec­tive ser­vice mem­bers since it was found that some mem­bers passed strate­gic in­for­ma­tion to gangs. Ram­lo­gan came down hard on for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, say­ing every time Man­ning spoke, crime went up. Man­ning was ab­sent from yes­ter­day's House. Ram­lo­gan said Man­ning had "mol­ly­cod­dled" and em­braced gang lead­ers and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers, had break­fast­ed with them at Crowne Plaza and had giv­en them URP and Cepep con­tracts. "How many fam­i­lies of kid­nap vic­tims did you all give break­fast to and em­brace?!" Ram­lo­gan thun­dered at PNM MPs. Not­ing Man­ning once said he knew who "Mr Big was," Ram­lo­gan said Man­ning had a pen­chant for know­ing in­for­ma­tion but not shar­ing it with the po­lice.

The bill's pro­vi­sions:

n Po­lice can ar­rest sus­pect­ed gang mem­bers with­out a war­rant, en­ter and search with­out war­rant or en­ter premis­es "by force and break­ing doors if nec­es­sary" with war­rant. n 20 years' jail for a gang mem­ber, some­one at­tempt­ing to be­come one, pro­fess­es to be one when they are not.

�2 25 years' jail when the per­son con­vict­ed is a mem­ber of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices or in­volved with a law en­force­ment agency.

�2 $500,000 and 20 years' jail for var­i­ous as­pects of par­tic­i­pat­ing in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in as­so­ci­a­tion with gangs, in­clud­ing at­tempt­ing to re­cruit a mem­ber or aid­ing mem­bers.

�2 $400,000 and 15 years' jail for pos­sess­ing a bul­let­proof vest, firearms or am­mo.

�2 $150,000 fine and five years jail for har­bour­ing/con­ceal­ing gang mem­bers

�2 $300,000 fine and 10 years jail for har­bour­ing/re­cruit­ing chil­dren.

�2 20 years jail for a per­son who with­in 500 me­tres of a school/church re­cruits a child.