Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Safe­ty first!

There can be no pros­per­i­ty with­out safe­ty in T&T—but the Gov­ern­ment’s 2024 Bud­get has com­plete­ly ig­nored the re­al­i­ty of the na­tion’s bru­tal vi­o­lent crime cri­sis.

This was the de­c­la­ra­tion yes­ter­day from Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who has of­fered a host of an­ti-crime rec­om­men­da­tions—in­clud­ing re­view­ing the leg­is­la­tion al­low­ing mar­i­jua­na use due to an ex­po­nen­tial in­crease in us­age and ad­dic­tion among teens and young adults.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar spoke on T&T’s crime cri­sis when she replied to the 2024 Bud­get, which she dis­missed as ir­rel­e­vant.

“... Be­cause even as I speak to­day, even as we are here, com­fort­ably en­sconced in this Par­lia­ment Cham­ber talk­ing high­fa­lutin talk about the econ­o­my, some in­no­cent cit­i­zen will be robbed and mur­dered,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Deal­ing with crime im­me­di­ate­ly as she be­gan her three hour and 38-minute ad­dress, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Bud­get com­plete­ly ig­nores the re­al­i­ties fac­ing cit­i­zens. “And what was most con­cern­ing is that the bru­tal, vi­o­lent crime cri­sis was main­ly ig­nored,” she said.

Cit­ing na­tion­wide con­cern on the is­sue, she al­so not­ed Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie spoke of the in­creas­ing mur­ders at yes­ter­day’s new law term launch.

But Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Fi­nance Min­is­ter didn’t ad­dress any tan­gi­ble new plans for the crime cri­sis.

“As has hap­pened be­fore, Bud­get 2024 con­tains some new promis­es by this Gov­ern­ment, which hasn’t even kept the promis­es of yes­ter­year. In­stead of ad­dress­ing promis­es made over the last eight years, the min­is­ter ig­nores those com­mit­ments, re-promis­es them, and makes new ones,” she said.

“But this Gov­ern­ment fails to un­der­stand there can be no pros­per­i­ty with­out safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty. This bud­get is ir­rel­e­vant … Crim­i­nals are at war with in­no­cent cit­i­zens, whom the Gov­ern­ment has left to fend for them­selves. There can be no pros­per­i­ty with­out safe­ty! And our peo­ple aren’t safe!

“On­ly yes­ter­day, the TTPS said they solve 13 out of every 100 mur­ders! This means that 87 per cent of the mur­der­ers are nev­er caught.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar dis­missed Gov­ern­ment’s claim of “con­tain­ing crime,” cit­ing news­pa­per re­ports of 60 mur­ders in Sep­tem­ber, ex­tor­tion and po­lice be­ing tar­get­ed by crim­i­nals.

“Where’s the ‘con­tain­ment? As Tri­nis say, it’s get­ting ‘woss­er’ and ‘woss­er’. While Gov­ern­ment boasts about how to pros­per, all I see is how peo­ple suf­fer,” she added.

Stench of mur­der

Per­sad-Bisses­sar lament­ed the re­cent mur­ders of Tiffany, Shain, Ar­i­an­na and Faith Pe­terkin, of Gua­napo, and An­drea Lal­lan, of Rio Claro. She said the Pe­terkin fam­i­ly fur­ther suf­fered the pain of what oc­curred with the chil­dren’s bod­ies be­fore their fu­ner­als.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar asked Gov­ern­ment MPs, “Do any of you know the stench of mur­der? While study­ing and work­ing in Ja­maica, I dis­cov­ered the hor­ri­ble smell of mur­der. I had a lit­tle Volk­swa­gen and was dri­ving along when I en­coun­tered a young man who was shot and ly­ing in the street. I stopped and with peo­ple’s help, we dragged him bloody, in­to my car.

“I dropped him at the hos­pi­tal and re­turned home in shock and fear. I scrubbed that car all evening. The suf­fo­cat­ing metal­lic smell of blood like rust­ed iron was brand­ed in my mind. The gur­gling, scrap­ing and rat­tling sounds from his chest and throat. Does any­one of you present here even un­der­stand the sight, smell, and sounds of mur­der?

“I was so shocked and full of fear that the sight, smell, and sound of mur­der have been im­print­ed in my mind ever since. It has nev­er left me. Too many fam­i­lies and po­lice of­fi­cers have al­so gone through sim­i­lar ex­pe­ri­ences.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said there are more mur­ders an­nu­al­ly than good lo­cal songs, bright in­ven­tions and tro­phies.

“Mur­der and pain dai­ly, are the new cul­ture of T&T. But we don’t make glib state­ments like ‘we’re a vi­o­lent so­ci­ety ’and leave it at that. We iden­ti­fy the prob­lems and caus­es and find so­lu­tions. While vi­o­lent crime is like a gi­ant, ter­ri­fy­ing mon­ster that keeps chang­ing shape it’s a mon­ster that can—and must- be tack­led. We must be hum­ble. When of­fered help, we must take it … ”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she’s still await­ing a re­ply from the Prime Min­is­ter on the planned an­ti-crime talks. She said she thought in­for­ma­tion on an­ti-crime plans were com­ing in the Bud­get.

“But as (UNC’s) Ani­ta Haynes said to me, the Bud­get was just more mon­ey, no new ideas. The Min­is­ter gave not a sin­gle new idea or plan how the Gov­ern­ment will res­cue the pop­u­la­tion from this night­mare of crime. Yet, they have the un­mit­i­gat­ed gall and temer­i­ty to blame the Op­po­si­tion and cit­i­zens claim­ing non-co­op­er­a­tion.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she is rec­om­mend­ing im­me­di­ate­ly, im­ple­mentable ini­tia­tives to re­duce crime. She called on Gov­ern­ment to con­sid­er these ini­tia­tives AS­AP and oth­ers will be pre­sent­ed at the an­ti-crime talks.

Run­away weed use

Among rec­om­men­da­tions, Per­sad-Bisses­sar urged a re­view of the leg­is­la­tion al­low­ing mar­i­jua­na use.

“There is an ex­po­nen­tial in­crease in mar­i­jua­na us­age and ad­dic­tion among teens and young adults. Due to the ab­sence of state agency over­sight and con­trol of sup­ply, users are smok­ing mar­i­jua­na laced with co­caine il­le­gal­ly im­port­ed,” she said.

“And they won­der why crime is so high. My gov­ern­ment gave youth lap­tops to learn, this gov­ern­ment gave them mar­i­jua­na.”

She rec­om­mend­ed a team to ad­dress the im­mi­nent ar­rival and use of Fen­tanyl.

An­oth­er sug­ges­tion was that via the Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­istry, coun­cil­lors over­see for­ma­tion of a com­mu­ni­ty sup­port coun­cil in each polling di­vi­sion of their dis­trict. These coun­cils will act like the old vil­lage coun­cils, pro­vid­ing guid­ance, men­tor­ship and sup­port to chil­dren, young adults, and par­ents, and serve as a di­rect link with po­lice and gov­ern­ment rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

Cit­ing crim­i­nals threats, Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so urged, “Knock it on them ... we need Stand Your Ground Law ... ”

She said Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds’ claim that he’s not re­spon­si­ble for cit­i­zens’ safe­ty “... is an of­fi­cial ad­mis­sion that they’re a failed Gov­ern­ment ... ”

“If a gov­ern­ment can­not pro­vide this le­gal guar­an­tee of safe­ty and pro­tec­tion for cit­i­zens’ lives, limbs, fam­i­lies, and homes, it is no longer a gov­ern­ment for the peo­ple that stands by the peo­ple.”

OP­PO­SI­TION SUG­GES­TIONS IN­CLUDE...

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said due to Gov­ern­ment’s “in­ac­tion,” some mem­bers of the fake elite fund­ed by nar­co-mon­ey have em­bed­ded them­selves in­to parts of the econ­o­my, thus fu­elling crime.

“A large por­tion of our econ­o­my, main­ly the un­der­ground econ­o­my, is fi­nanced by drug mon­ey,” she said.

She said the fight against crime must be holis­tic, in­clud­ing pre­ven­tion, de­tec­tion, con­vic­tion, and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.

Her rec­om­men­da­tions in­clude:

• In­crease covert op­er­a­tions at sea­ports, air­ports.

• In­stall Se­cu­ri­ty Elec­tron­ic Bill­boards

• Re­ac­ti­vate com­mu­ni­ty com­fort pa­trols; strength­en a re­brand­ed high­way pa­trol unit

• Prop­er­ly staff the se­vere­ly un­der­staffed E999 call cen­tre, where cit­i­zens are forced to wait for over 45 min­utes at times, and no one an­swers

• In­crease/main­tain CCTV cam­eras through­out T&T

• Re­struc­ture so­cial pro­grammes that have be­come gang and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty havens.

• In­tro­duce the anony­mous an­ti-bul­ly­ing app for stu­dents to make re­ports.

• In­tro­duce par­ent pa­trols in schools to main­tain dis­ci­pline with deans, teach­ers, and Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices.

• All stu­dents must un­der­go free, manda­to­ry, an­nu­al phys­i­cal and med­ical screen­ing by state-ap­proved pub­lic and pri­vate med­ical doc­tors to ex­am­ine for phys­i­cal abuse, sub­stance abuse, sex­u­al abuse, mal­nu­tri­tion, and dis­eases.

• En­forced ze­ro-tol­er­ance ap­proach to phys­i­cal vi­o­lence in schools. Any stu­dent phys­i­cal­ly at­tack­ing an­oth­er stu­dent must be im­me­di­ate­ly re­moved and on­ly be al­lowed to re­turn af­ter com­plet­ing neu­ro-di­ag­nos­tic test­ing and a prop­er coun­selling pro­gramme

• Short-term as­sess­ment to iden­ti­fy the scale of in­volve­ment of il­le­gal im­mi­grants in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty to de­vel­op a plan on this

• Prop­er­ly sup­port the poor­ly utilised, un­der­staffed Transna­tion­al Or­gan­ised Crime Unit

• En­hance/ful­ly reim­ple­ment the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre.

• Im­me­di­ate­ly im­ple­ment elec­tron­ic da­ta ac­cess in all po­lice ve­hi­cles; in­te­grate a ful­ly com­put­erised crime sta­tis­tics and re­port­ing sys­tem; com­put­er­i­sa­tion of all po­lice sta­tions.

• Stand your ground laws, cre­ation of the of­fence of home in­va­sions. Al­lowance for the right to bear arms or mod­i­fi­ca­tions to the cur­rent leg­is­la­tion to make ac­quir­ing firearms by law-abid­ing cit­i­zens eas­i­er

• Leg­is­la­tion to make gat­ing com­mu­ni­ties eas­i­er

• In­creased mu­nic­i­pal po­lice com­ple­ments

• Po­lice of­fi­cers full-time in all schools.

• In­creased TTDF re­tire­ment age

• Per­son­al li­censed firearms to all ac­tive TTPS and prison of­fi­cers

• Elec­tron­ic an­kle bracelets and house ar­rest

• State sup­port for chil­dren of in­car­cer­at­ed per­sons

• Re­vamped wit­ness pro­tec­tion pro­gramme.

• A foren­sic sci­ence com­plex/train­ing fa­cil­i­ty at the UWI Debe cam­pus.

• Re­view leg­is­la­tion to en­able cit­i­zens to hire pri­vate at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing their in­ter­ests at hear­ings for par­ty and bar li­cences. The cur­rent sys­tem is cor­rupt­ed.

• Leg­is­la­tion for manda­to­ry cut-off time for all pub­lic events re­quir­ing dance­hall li­cences not held with­in an en­closed build­ing. Ex­cep­tions to be made dur­ing the car­ni­val sea­son.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar sug­gest­ed the re­in­force­ment of the Na­tion­al Stu­dent Hot­line (free talk) 800-4321 to pro­vide pro­fes­sion­al coun­selling to stu­dents, the “Cir­cle of Hope,” where stu­dents speak with trained teach­ers on is­sues, and the Re­tirees Ado­les­cent Part­ner­ship pro­gramme to aid/su­per­vise low-school per­form­ers and out–of–school ado­les­cents.