RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

As gang-re­lat­ed crime es­ca­lates, the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice has launched a new ini­tia­tive named Project GRACE (Gang Re­duc­tion and Com­mu­ni­ty Em­pow­er­ment) aimed at curb­ing gang vi­o­lence.

Dur­ing a school sup­ply dis­tri­b­u­tion dri­ve held at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in San Fer­nan­do last Wednes­day, Joanne James, con­sul­tant at Project GRACE, un­der­scored the ur­gency of tack­ling gang-re­lat­ed crime.

A to­tal of 60 stu­dents from Po­lice Youth Clubs and chil­dren from a home in Gas­par­il­lo re­ceived school sup­plies as part of the pro­gramme.

James said Project GRACE was backed by the US De­part­ment of State’s Bu­reau of In­ter­na­tion­al Nar­cotics and Law En­force­ment Af­fairs (INL) and was aimed at strength­en­ing the TTPS’ ca­pac­i­ty to com­bat gang-re­lat­ed se­cu­ri­ty is­sues.

While the po­lice are cru­cial to main­tain­ing cit­i­zen safe­ty, James said, a mul­ti-faceted strate­gic ap­proach fo­cus­ing on the root caus­es of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties was es­sen­tial to ef­fec­tive­ly ad­dress crime.

“The Pan Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Foun­da­tion (PADF) is the im­ple­ment­ing agency for Project GRACE. The project’s pri­ma­ry fo­cus is to en­hance the TTPS’ com­mu­ni­ty-ori­ent­ed polic­ing and in­tel­li­gence-led an­ti-gang ef­forts, through process im­prove­ment, plan­ning, de­vel­op­ment, and ex­e­cu­tion of ac­tiv­i­ties de­signed to pre­vent and re­duce crime and gang ac­tiv­i­ties,” James ex­plained.

She fur­ther em­pha­sised the ne­ces­si­ty of mod­i­fy­ing some TTPS prac­tices, with a spe­cif­ic fo­cus on adopt­ing proac­tive pre­ven­tive ap­proach­es to polic­ing.

“Project GRACE aims to bol­ster the TTPS’ com­mit­ment to com­mu­ni­ty and stake­hold­er en­gage­ment in ef­forts to re­duce and pre­vent vi­o­lence, crime, and youth in­volve­ment in gangs,” she added.

The project, through ex­ten­sive train­ing in com­mu­ni­ty-ori­ent­ed polic­ing, will equip of­fi­cers with a deep­er un­der­stand­ing of the prac­tice, aim­ing to re­duce gang in­volve­ment sig­nif­i­cant­ly, she added.

She said, “Project GRACE will in­volve a com­bi­na­tion of pre­ven­tion, in­ter­ven­tion and sup­pres­sion strate­gies, in­volv­ing en­force­ment, com­mu­ni­ty, and de­vel­op­men­tal crime pre­ven­tion, as well as strate­gies seek­ing to ad­dress the root caus­es of crim­i­nal and gang ac­tiv­i­ty with­in com­mu­ni­ties.”

James said that Project GRACE would scru­ti­nise ar­eas, peo­ple, and in­sti­tu­tions sus­cep­ti­ble to gang in­flu­ence and strate­gise pre-emp­tive­ly to counter this.

“We want to pre­vent that so we look at you, our fu­ture, and try to in­ter­act and in­ter­vene in a way to try to save our coun­try from go­ing where it is go­ing,” James said.

Mean­while, Se­nior Su­per­in­ten­dent Sub­has Ramkhelawan, who heads the White­land Po­lice Youth Club, high­light­ed the club’s com­mu­ni­ty ac­tiv­i­ties. He said the Po­lice Youth Club had re­ceived per­mis­sion from the Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry to use the Gas­par­il­lo Sec­ondary School as a hub for their pro­grammes.

Ramkhelawan said, “On Tues­days, Thurs­days and Sat­ur­days, we have pro­grammes geared for you. Close to 100 peo­ple from the dis­trict have al­ready shown in­ter­est in our dance class, archery and sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties.”

In align­ment with the TTPS strate­gic plan, Ramkhelawan said, the club al­so planned to adopt Crime Pre­ven­tion Through En­vi­ron­men­tal De­sign and en­gage the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty in set­ting up a hy­dro­pon­ic sys­tem at the school.