Gail Alexan­der

Gang busi­ness is now tur­bu­lent.

Gang vi­o­lence ap­peared to es­ca­late in T&T this year fol­low­ing the death of a known gang leader– caus­ing pow­er strug­gles among gangs – an al­liance be­tween con­ven­tion­al street gangs and “hired” em­ploy­ees and a merg­er among gangs in­volved in white-col­lar crime.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds gave this in­for­ma­tion in Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day in re­ply­ing to UNC MP Rod­ney Charles’ query on why, de­spite the An­ti-Gang Act, the act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er stat­ed in Jan­u­ary 2022 that there ap­pears to be an es­ca­la­tion in gang vi­o­lence.

Hinds said ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion pro­vid­ed by the com­mis­sion­er, the ap­par­ent es­ca­la­tion in gang vi­o­lence is in part due to the fol­low­ing fac­tors:

(A) The death of a known gang leader in the lat­ter part of 2021, which had deep ram­i­fi­ca­tions in the crim­i­nal un­der­world. Among oth­er things, this killing caused a frag­men­ta­tion in the gang lead­er­ship and prompt­ed at­tempts by oth­er gangs to as­sume the op­er­a­tions of the par­tic­u­lar gang to which he be­longed;

(B) An al­liance be­tween con­ven­tion­al street gangs and per­sons hired by them to car­ry out vi­o­lent crimes on their be­half, in­clud­ing shoot­ing, ar­son, ex­tor­tion, kid­nap­ping and mur­der;

(C) A merg­er among gangs in­volved in white-col­lar crimes, which in­clude hu­man traf­fick­ing, il­le­gal quar­ry­ing and the il­le­gal im­por­ta­tion of firearms, am­mu­ni­tion and drugs in­to T&T.

Hinds said to fight this men­ace, the TTPS has de­vel­oped sev­er­al crime-fight­ing strate­gies to ac­cel­er­ate the man­ner of polic­ing and ul­ti­mate­ly dis­man­tle crim­i­nal gangs.

These in­clude:

* Cur­tail­ing ac­cess to guns and am­mu­ni­tion – TTPS’ Homi­cide Bu­reau is ac­tive­ly en­gaged in re­mov­ing guns from the streets through tar­get­ed law en­force­ment ac­tiv­i­ties and en­force­ment mon­i­tor­ing. This in­cludes ex­pand­ing de­tec­tion ef­forts at le­gal ports, as well as ex­am­in­ing the op­er­a­tions of se­cu­ri­ty firms, li­censed gun deal­ers, le­gal firearm users, shoot­ing ranges and firearm train­ers. The fo­cus on le­gal/il­le­gal guns is to pre­vent guns and am­mu­ni­tion from be­ing ac­cessed and used by crim­i­nals.

* Com­bat­ing white-col­lar crime - TTPS’ Fi­nan­cial In­ves­tiga­tive Bu­reau is proac­tive­ly con­cen­trat­ing ef­forts on ad­dress­ing fi­nan­cial­ly mo­ti­vat­ed crime such as mon­ey laun­der­ing; un­ex­plained wealth linked to il­le­gal quar­ry­ing and the trade in guns and drugs.

* Re­dis­tri­b­u­tion of re­sources – Giv­en that the North­ern Di­vi­sion fre­quent­ly records the high­est crime rate, the TTPS im­ple­ment­ed a new mea­sure in Jan­u­ary 2022 to treat with mur­ders and vi­o­lent crime - the di­vi­sion sub-di­vid­ed in­to the North­ern Di­vi­sion North and North­ern Di­vi­sion Cen­tral. A se­nior su­per­in­ten­dent leads each sub-di­vi­sion. This is ex­pect­ed to sup­port a more tar­get­ed ap­proach to crime and vi­o­lence there, in­clud­ing gang vi­o­lence.

* Deep­en­ing re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al co­or­di­na­tion ef­forts – The TTPS con­tin­ues to work close­ly with re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners to strength­en ap­proach­es to deal with gangs op­er­at­ing with­in the coun­try’s bor­ders. This in­cludes shar­ing and re­ceiv­ing da­ta on or­gan­ised crime ac­tiv­i­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly as it re­lates to stolen ves­sels, want­ed per­sons, drug seizures, iden­ti­ty doc­u­ments and foren­sic ev­i­dence.

Hinds added, “Most of the crimes that threat­en us are not with ori­gins in T&T, there is a se­vere and se­ri­ous in­ter­na­tion­al el­e­ment to this.”

* Con­tin­u­ing ef­forts to in­fil­trate com­mu­ni­ties - TTPS con­tin­ues work­ing to­geth­er with com­mu­ni­ties to cap­ture and/or de­ter those bent on dis­tress­ing cit­i­zens. TTPS’ Com­mu­ni­ty-Ori­ent­ed Polic­ing ini­tia­tive and Po­lice Youth Clubs are in­tend­ed to in­crease com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment ef­forts, there­by re­duc­ing like­li­hood of youths be­ing wrong­ly in­flu­enced. Al­so, sev­er­al spe­cialised sec­tions are now heav­i­ly in­volved in com­mu­ni­ties iden­ti­fied to be chal­lenged with crim­i­nal and gang ac­tiv­i­ties.

Hinds not­ed, “Four of the five prison es­capees were re­cap­tured with the help of cit­i­zens.”

He said en­force­ment will give life to laws and the TTPS has been us­ing them since peo­ple have been ar­rest­ed and charged un­der the An­ti-Gang law for in­stance.

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