Zahra Gor­don

South-west­ern Trinidad has the low­est crime rate in the coun­try ac­cord­ing to act­ing se­nior Supt Gilbert Ram­sey. Ram­sey was speak­ing at the first edi­tion of the La Brea Po­lice Youth Club March Against Crime yes­ter­day, when more than 250 mem­bers of the La Brea and Siparia Po­lice Youth Clubs marched from Ves­signy Sec­ondary School to the Brighton Recre­ation­al Grounds, Pt D'or, La Brea, to raise a unit­ed voice against crime in the coun­try.

Ram­sey said he be­lieved com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing and mea­sures such as week­ly road­blocks and breathal­yser ex­er­cis­es con­tributed to the South West­ern Di­vi­sion's low crime rate. He said he could not com­ment on polic­ing out­side of his dis­trict but point­ed out that ac­cord­ing to the most re­cent Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis Sta­tis­tics, crimes such as rob­bery and pet­ty lar­ce­ny were "gen­er­al­ly un­der con­trol." The mur­der rate "is where the se­ri­ous prob­lem lies," he said.

In ad­di­tion to Ram­sey, oth­er high-rank­ing of­fi­cers who at­tend­ed the march in­clud­ed Supt Samkat and Ag ASP Parde­si. The fea­ture ad­dress­es were by La Brea MP Fitzger­ald Jef­fery, coun­cil­lor Ger­ald De­bisette and for­mer chief of de­fence staff Ed­mund Dil­lon.

PC Der­rick Bul­lion, pres­i­dent of the La Brea Po­lice Youth Club, said the march was not or­gan­ised by the club's man­age­ment but by the chil­dren who want­ed a safe space to voice their opin­ions about so­ci­etal is­sues. One mem­ber, Al­laina Pierre, said she ob­served many il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties in the com­mu­ni­ty that need­ed to end.

"We have plen­ty crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties that af­fect the chil­dren and they may not be say­ing any­thing. We have prob­lems with drugs, steal­ing, lar­ce­ny. The march is a start to the con­ver­sa­tion," she said. Bul­lion said that the march was the first step to curb­ing crime not on­ly in La Brea, but the en­tire coun­try. The march will be held an­nu­al­ly and Bul­lion would like to see it grow to a na­tion­al event.

"We see it help­ing the youths by peo­ple get­ting to know that the youths ac­tu­al­ly have a voice and we ex­pect that it should have some sort of ef­fect on the peo­ple that are ac­tu­al­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in these crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties in the area," he said. Fol­low­ing the march, chil­dren were able to par­tic­i­pate in sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties and vis­it­ed var­i­ous in­for­ma­tion booths manned by the T&T Prison Ser­vice, Air Guard, Po­lice Ser­vice and T&T Reg­i­ment.