Geisha Kow­lessar

The lat­est ini­tia­tive by the Gov­ern­ment to rid the coun­try of crim­i­nal el­e­ments is the Gang Bill and the Bail (Amend­ment) Bill which was passed unan­i­mous­ly in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on April 1.Al­ready grap­pling with a crime rate that con­tin­ues to rise at an alarm­ing rate, the Gov­ern­ment has moved full speed ahead to stamp out gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties, even mak­ing par­ents ac­count­able.The bills were hailed by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan as "rev­o­lu­tion­ary."He said par­ents would be made ac­count­able for crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties com­mit­ted by their chil­dren and par­ents who "har­bour" and "con­ceal" gang mem­bers would face the con­se­quences.

Ac­cord­ing to sta­tis­tics sup­plied by the po­lice, there were be­tween 80 and 110 gangs op­er­at­ing in Trinidad with an av­er­age mem­ber­ship of 15 peo­ple.How­ev­er, some gangs could be as large as 100 peo­ple.In a coun­try where gang vi­o­lence has even per­me­at­ed the school sys­tem, how ef­fec­tive would leg­is­la­tion be?Will leg­is­la­tion be ef­fec­tive enough to pre­vent no­to­ri­ous gang lead­ers from re­cruit­ing vul­ner­a­ble young peo­ple, most of them school dropouts?

Ac­cord­ing to promi­nent crim­i­nol­o­gist Pro­fes­sor Ramesh De­osaran-the new chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion-leg­is­la­tion alone was not enough.De­osaran spoke in an in­ter­view be­fore he was named as the new chair­man of the com­mis­sion.While he hailed the Gov­ern­ment for do­ing its part, De­osaran said there was a "huge gap," as al­ready ex­ist­ing leg­is­la­tion was not be­ing im­ple­ment­ed."The Gov­ern­ment is do­ing it's du­ty, but there are oth­er agen­cies, like the po­lice and the pro­ba­tion of­fi­cers, who have failed and that's the miss­ing gap," he said.

"It is not the leg­is­la­tion...It is hold­ing those who are ac­count­able re­spon­si­ble-who are re­spon­si­ble for en­forc­ing the leg­is­la­tion."He said to erad­i­cate vi­o­lence in schools, gang ac­tiv­i­ties must be erad­i­cat­ed al­to­geth­er."As long as there is a mul­ti­plic­i­ty of gangs on the streets and in the schools and neigh­bour­hoods, they will serve as mag­nets for school vi­o­lence," De­osaran said, adding that as long as the school en­vi­ron­ment re­mained "tox­ic," stu­dents would be vul­ner­a­ble to that "tox­i­c­i­ty.""We have to deal with gangs in the schools and in the wider pub­lic and there­fore we must deal with their mode of op­er­a­tion," he said."While it is a good in­ten­tion to re­ha­bil­i­tate young peo­ple, they, how­ev­er, must be sub­ject­ed to tough love."

Ac­count­abil­i­ty in schools

De­osaran, who iden­ti­fied strict dis­ci­pline and ac­count­abil­i­ty as the build­ing blocks to pre­vent the spread of vi­o­lence in schools, said it should be made manda­to­ry for par­ents to an­swer to school prin­ci­pals.He said a few years ago, a study ti­tled A So­cial Jus­tice Mode was con­duct­ed on some 60 schools through­out the coun­try.One of the rec­om­men­da­tions, he re­called, was that if a stu­dent was found guilty of en­gag­ing in vi­o­lence, that stu­dent should be judged by a "ju­ry of peers.""Bring that stu­dent in front of the class­room be­fore a ju­ry com­pris­ing fel­low stu­dents and let them de­ter­mine what pun­ish­ment should be met­ed out," De­osaran said."This will al­so serve as a de­ter­rent to oth­er stu­dents be­cause there is noth­ing in the life of an ado­les­cent more pow­er­ful than peer pres­sure."

He al­so called for greater ac­count­abil­i­ty on the part of school safe­ty of­fi­cers, claim­ing they were "not work­ing as in­tend­ed.""There must be an en­tire re­ju­ve­na­tion process," he said."The min­istry ap­point­ed school safe­ty of­fi­cers in some 100 sec­ondary schools and re­cent­ly they have not been work­ing as in­tend­ed... Some are not prop­er­ly trained and some are stay­ing away from the job."This must be se­ri­ous­ly ad­dressed."

'Boys' Towns'

It was said by for­mer ed­u­ca­tion min­is­ter Clive Pan­tin, ac­cord­ing to De­osaran, that on­ly a "hand­fulof boys were giv­ing trou­ble" in the na­tion's schools.The so­lu­tion, De­osaran said, was to es­tab­lish "Boys' Towns" in five dif­fer­ent dis­tricts across the coun­try."It will mean tak­ing the stu­dents who are re­al­ly vi­o­lent out of the school sys­tem and plac­ing them in these Boys' Towns," he said."This will be a spe­cial en­vi­ron­ment which will fa­cil­i­tate pos­i­tive at­ti­tudes and cre­ate health so­cial and aca­d­e­m­ic as­pi­ra­tions."He said he al­so con­duct­ed a study on gangs along the East-West Cor­ri­dor which was com­mis­sioned by then pres­i­dent of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus.

De­osaran said rec­om­men­da­tions were al­so made for 20 em­pow­er­ment cen­tres to house young boys who had drift­ed in­to gangs. The cen­tres, he said, were to be run in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the pri­vate sec­tor, the Gov­ern­ment and unions."Every­one will get in­volved in this kind of part­ner­ship...The boys will then be fil­tered in­to mean­ing­ful jobs be­yond Cepep and URP," De­osaran said."It will be an al­ter­na­tive for a more mean­ing­ful life where sus­tain­able em­ploy­ment will be of­fered."

Sus­pen­sion not the an­swer

Prin­ci­pals, who sus­pend trou­ble­mak­ers at schools, were play­ing right in­to their hands.Sus­pen­sion, De­osaran point­ed out, cre­at­ed a "more dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion" as it fa­cil­i­tat­ed fur­ther in­dis­ci­pline."Sus­pen­sion is def­i­nite­ly not the an­swer...It will on­ly cre­ate a more dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion be­cause that is ex­act­ly what the in­dis­ci­plined stu­dent wants-more free time," he said."Take them out and put them in a more con­trolled en­vi­ron­ment like the Boys' Towns," De­osaran main­tained.

He said al­though re­li­gious in­struc­tion was be­ing taught in schools, this al­so of­fered no so­lu­tion."There is no bet­ter teacher than ex­am­ple," he said.Re­li­gion will not help...We need prop­er role mod­els-teach­ers, par­ents, priests and politi­cians."

'Law en­force­ment in­ef­fi­cient'

De­scrib­ing gangs as a de­mo­graph­ic, eco­nom­ic and so­cial prob­lem, De­osaran said it must be tack­led from the "ground up.""And cer­tain­ly it will not be ef­fi­cient­ly tack­led from just sit­ting at Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing and im­ple­ment­ing plans that al­ways get abort­ed be­cause they nev­er work on lo­cal soil," De­osaran said.He said each com­mu­ni­ty was dif­fer­ent, and gangs in T&T had grown so preva­lent and un­re­lent­ing that it was no longer a case of "one gang here and an­oth­er there.

"Gangs have evolved...We have de­scend­ed in­to a cul­ture of vi­o­lence and that makes it even more fright­en­ing," De­osaran said."So it has to be root­ed out at the school lev­el be­fore we sink deep­er in­to the vi­o­lence and de­spair."I hope it doesn't grow be­cause that would dam­age the very core of ci­vil­i­ty."

Gang-re­lat­ed mur­der­son the de­cline-Ewats­ki

The con­tin­ued pres­ence of po­lice of­fi­cers in crime "hot spots" has led to a de­crease in gang-re­lat­ed homi­cides, ac­cord­ing to Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er in charge of Op­er­a­tions Jack Ewats­ki."Our pres­ence in East Port-of-Spain and Laven­tille is cer­tain­ly con­tribut­ing to that re­duc­tion," he said.Ex­press­ing con­cern about school vi­o­lence, Ewats­ki said "any type vi­o­lence is dis­turb­ing," in­clud­ing in­ci­dents in­volv­ing chil­dren.Ac­cord­ing to sta­tis­tics pro­vid­ed by the Po­lice Ser­vice's Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis Branch (Ca­pa), be­tween 2001 and 2010, the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion record­ed the high­est fig­ures, with the largest num­ber of gang re­lat­ed mur­ders-116-record­ed in 2008.

Re­move dis­rup­tive stu­dents-TTUTA

Echo­ing De­osaran's rec­om­men­da­tions to re­move dis­rup­tive stu­dents from the na­tion's schools, Rous­tan Job, pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­fied Teach­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (TTUTA), said prob­lem stu­dents should be placed in "spe­cial schools."Job said these in­sti­tu­tions should be im­ple­ment­ed with "spe­cial cri­te­ria" to meet the needs of stu­dents bent on dis­play­ing vi­o­lent be­hav­iour.He said "a lot has al­ready been done," but he ques­tioned the ef­fec­tive­ness of such mea­sures."Many times what hap­pens in the com­mu­ni­ties af­fect the youths and this could be played out in the school en­vi­ron­ment," Job not­ed.

Job said the ma­jor­i­ty of stu­dents were "well be­haved" and on­ly a hand­ful of stu­dents cre­at­ed chaos in the school sys­tem."It seems that vi­o­lent in­ci­dents usu­al­ly take place at cer­tain times of the year, like around Car­ni­val and when the stu­dents are leav­ing be­cause they know they don't have to re­turn," he said.The TTUTA pres­i­dent called for spe­cif­ic mea­sures to be ap­plied to ad­dress school vi­o­lence, in­clud­ing man­age­ment of gen­der, be­hav­iour mod­i­fi­ca­tion, deal­ing with vi­o­lent stu­dents and school vi­o­lence and le­gal ed­u­ca­tion per­tain­ing to stu­dents.

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What is a gang?

A gang is a group of three or more in­di­vid­u­als who band to­geth­er for crim­i­nal or an­ti-so­cial be­hav­iour.

Type of gang mem­bers

Gangs typ­i­cal­ly have three com­po­nents:

• Lead­ers

• Hard core mem­bers (most vi­o­lent mem­bers)

• Mar­gin­al mem­bers (of­ten re­ferred to as "wannabes.") These mem­bers drift in and out of the gang ac­cord­ing to their needs.

How gangs dis­play their uni­ty and iden­ti­ty

• Use of jew­el­ry

• Se­lect­ed coloured cloth­ing

• Jar­gon and sig­nals

• Mem­bers re­main to­geth­er in qui­et times as well as in con­flict

The main source of in­come for most gangs

• Nar­cotics-Mem­bers of all ages are used by the gang in the il­le­gal sale of nar­cotics

• Ex­tor­tion

• Rob­beries

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Gang-re­lat­ed mur­ders 2001-2010

2001 3

2002 17

2003 42

2004 32

2005 81

2006 98

2007 207

2008 278

2009 179

2010 75

Source: Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis Branch, T&T Po­lice Ser­vice

Why chil­dren join gangs

• Recog­ni­tion

• Ac­cep­tance

• Pow­er

• Mon­ey

• A sub­sti­tute fam­i­ly

• Re­spect

• Se­cu­ri­ty

• Pro­tec­tion

Source: T&T Po­lice Ser­vice

DA­TA ON MUR­DERS AND GANG RE­LAT­ED MUR­DERS FOR THE YEARS 2001 - 2010