The first re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the State and its gov­er­nance in­sti­tu­tions is to en­sure the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of its cit­i­zens. It is be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly ob­vi­ous that the lev­el of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go is hin­der­ing the nor­mal func­tion­ing of our so­ci­ety. The Unit­ed Na­tions in its “Glob­al Study on Homi­cide” (2019) not­ed that crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty is re­spon­si­ble for many more deaths world­wide than armed con­flict and ter­ror­ism com­bined. The news­pa­pers’ front pages this week high­light­ed the uptick in the mur­der rate which ran past the 500 thresh­old with 21 mur­ders in the last week. What of next year if this trend con­tin­ues?

We start from the propo­si­tion that mur­der is a na­tion­al scourge which must be im­me­di­ate­ly ad­dressed. Mur­der is the ul­ti­mate crime and is the most mea­sur­able sta­tis­tic for cross-na­tion­al sta­tis­ti­cal com­par­isons. There­fore, notwith­stand­ing the com­ments of the Prime Min­is­ter dur­ing his Tues­day night speech to the par­ty faith­ful, it is the mea­sure by which we will judge his per­for­mance and the per­for­mance of his ad­min­is­tra­tion in ad­dress­ing the crime sit­u­a­tion.

The Prime Min­is­ter whilst speak­ing to the par­ty faith­ful in a UNC strong­hold last Tues­day, ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of politi­cis­ing crime and not­ed the UNC’s re­sis­tance to the ad­min­is­tra­tion’s ef­forts to amend the Bail Bill. The Prime Min­is­ter al­so in­di­cat­ed that the Gov­ern­ment was spend­ing $80 mil­lion to in­stall 2,500 CCTV cam­eras at var­i­ous lo­ca­tions across the coun­try.

In April, the UNC mem­ber for San Juan Barataria ques­tioned the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter in Par­lia­ment on the num­ber of non-func­tion­ing CCTV cam­eras. Fur­ther ques­tions on how soon the cam­eras would be fixed re­ceived no re­sponse. Per­haps the prime min­is­ter was cor­rect­ing that fail­ure, al­beit sev­en months lat­er.

The mur­der rate is a na­tion­al prob­lem that re­quires a na­tion­al re­sponse in Par­lia­ment for the ben­e­fit of all cit­i­zens. Tues­day night’s plat­form rhetoric did not ad­vance the coun­try’s in­ter­est and served on­ly to con­firm that the PNM is as guilty of the politi­cis­ing of crime as the UNC. How does the na­tion ben­e­fit?

Rather than tak­ing prag­mat­ic or prin­ci­pled po­si­tions on crime, the lead­ers of the two main par­ties are tak­ing po­lit­i­cal po­si­tions. Crime is a na­tion­al is­sue af­fect­ing all cit­i­zens and re­quires a non-par­ti­san ap­proach. Scor­ing cheap po­lit­i­cal points can­not take prece­dence over find­ing com­pre­hen­sive so­lu­tions. The State has tremen­dous pow­er and re­sources to ad­dress crime from many an­gles.

The list is long. We present a con­densed ver­sion. First, guns are en­ter­ing the coun­try through the ports. Cus­toms and Ex­cise must be over­hauled as must our coastal sur­veil­lance and pro­tec­tion sys­tems. Why are there no work­ing scan­ners, or ad­vanced screen­ing sys­tems to guide in­spec­tion at the ports of en­try? Fur­ther, guns can on­ly func­tion with am­mu­ni­tion. Who is pro­vid­ing the am­mu­ni­tion? Sim­i­lar­ly, the TTPS needs po­lice of­fi­cers trained to a high­er lev­el of com­pe­tence, and im­proved dis­ci­pline struc­tures with­in the ranks. Any amend­ment to the Bail Bill would be use­less with­out im­prove­ments in the foren­sics and bal­lis­tic test­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties to al­low pros­e­cu­tors to do their job. Al­so, a more ef­fi­cient court sys­tem and a more dis­ci­plined and tol­er­ant so­ci­ety.

This is the type of cred­i­ble agen­da that the Prime Min­is­ter must own, rather than de­flect­ing crit­i­cism, de­fend­ing the in­de­fen­si­ble and di­vid­ing the cit­i­zen­ry on po­lit­i­cal lines, whilst crime de­stroys the fab­ric of our so­ci­ety.