Raphael John-Lall

Ex­perts are warn­ing the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty not to let their guard down as the crime wave that has stalked T&T in 2024 will con­tin­ue through­out the Christ­mas sea­son.

They al­so ar­gue that, in T&T, there is a link be­tween slug­gish eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty, peo­ple who are un­em­ployed and un­der­em­ployed and a high­er crime rate dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son.

There have been news re­ports of a 73-year-old woman who was robbed at Movi­eTowne last week, the at­tempt­ed rob­bery of a jew­ellery store in Rio Claro and the shock­ing news of the rob­bery of the man­ag­er of the Mex­i­can Suarez Broth­ers Cir­cus a few weeks ago which made in­ter­na­tion­al news head­lines.

Re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert, Garvin Heer­ah, told the Sun­day Busi­ness Guardian that with more com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty tak­ing place dur­ing this De­cem­ber, busi­ness own­ers as well as the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, should ex­pect “height­ened se­cu­ri­ty risks.”

“As we en­ter the fi­nal stretch of 2024, it is ev­i­dent that the crime wave ex­pe­ri­enced through­out the year has sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­pact­ed the safe­ty and sta­bil­i­ty of our com­mu­ni­ties. De­cem­ber, tra­di­tion­al­ly a time for in­creased eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty and fes­tive cel­e­bra­tions, now faces height­ened se­cu­ri­ty risks that could se­vere­ly af­fect busi­ness­es and in­di­vid­u­als.

“Crim­i­nals, dri­ven by des­per­a­tion for fast mon­ey, are in­creas­ing­ly tar­get­ing busi­ness­es through armed rob­beries, home in­va­sions, car­jack­ings, and ex­tor­tion schemes. Dis­turbing­ly, there is al­so a no­tice­able rise in fe­male in­volve­ment in se­ri­ous crimes and an un­set­tling trend of il­le­gal im­mi­grants from Latin Amer­i­ca par­tic­i­pat­ing in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties,” said Heer­ah.

He said this “alarm­ing shift” in the crim­i­nal land­scape calls for height­ened vig­i­lance from both busi­ness­es and shop­pers dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son and ad­vised busi­ness own­ers how they should pro­tect their busi­ness­es.

“Busi­ness­es should strength­en their se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols, in­clud­ing en­hanced sur­veil­lance sys­tems, vis­i­ble se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel and lim­it­ed ac­cess to vul­ner­a­ble ar­eas. Shop­pers must re­main aware of their sur­round­ings, avoid car­ry­ing large sums of cash, and use well-lit and se­cure park­ing ar­eas. Col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween law en­force­ment, pri­vate se­cu­ri­ty and com­mu­ni­ty watch groups will al­so be es­sen­tial in mit­i­gat­ing these threats dur­ing the busy hol­i­day sea­son.”

He spoke about the mur­der rate and lament­ed that with the mur­der rate al­ready sur­pass­ing 600, the year is clos­ing on an alarm­ing and trag­ic note for T&T.

“The psy­cho­log­i­cal toll on cit­i­zens is im­mense, and this high rate of vi­o­lent crime un­der­scores the need for im­me­di­ate, strate­gic in­ter­ven­tions.”

On a som­bre note, he con­clud­ed that the end of the year will not mean a re­prieve as Christ­mas leads in­to Car­ni­val and the crime wave is ex­pect­ed to con­tin­ue.

“As the Car­ni­val sea­son fol­lows close­ly on the heels of Christ­mas, we must pre­pare for an­oth­er pe­ri­od of height­ened vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, not just from vi­o­lent crime but al­so road safe­ty con­cerns and po­ten­tial fa­tal ac­ci­dents. Proac­tive mea­sures, in­clud­ing in­creased law en­force­ment vis­i­bil­i­ty, pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion cam­paigns, and part­ner­ships be­tween se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies and com­mu­ni­ties, will be crit­i­cal to en­sure that the up­com­ing fes­tive pe­ri­od does not com­pound an al­ready dire sit­u­a­tion.”

Christ­mas crime sta­tis­tics

A high­er crime rate dur­ing the com­mer­cial­ly im­por­tant Christ­mas sea­son is not just a phe­nom­e­non in T&T but al­so in larg­er, more de­vel­oped coun­tries.

The web­site of UK based se­cu­ri­ty firm Churchill Sup­port Ser­vices ex­plained how this busy com­mer­cial pe­ri­od im­pacts on a high­er crime rate.

“Christ­mas is, with­out ques­tion, an ex­pen­sive time for many. With presents to con­sid­er, lunch­es to plan, and dec­o­ra­tions to de­cide up­on, it’s a month where there’s like­ly to be sig­nif­i­cant and of­ten un­ex­pect­ed ex­pens­es. That sad­ly means that many re­sort to shoplift­ing, with the last three months of the year see­ing a huge­ly dis­pro­por­tion­ate amount of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.”

The UK se­cu­ri­ty firm gave sta­tis­tics which showed that on a re­gion­al ba­sis, Lon­don, one of the world’s lead­ing fi­nan­cial cen­tres, is the hard­est hit by shoplift­ing over the Christ­mas pe­ri­od, with the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Po­lice re­port­ing 12,705 of­fences in 2022.

Churchill Sup­port Ser­vices al­so re­ferred to the “eco­nom­ic cri­sis” that the UK and the wider world is fac­ing and how the down­turn in the econ­o­my af­fects busi­ness­es and con­sumers neg­a­tive­ly dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son.

“It’s com­mon knowl­edge at this point that the UK is go­ing through an eco­nom­ic cri­sis. Wages aren’t ris­ing in line with the ris­ing cost of hous­ing and gro­ceries, and it’s be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to af­ford the same qual­i­ty of life that many of us en­joyed just a few short years ago. The emerg­ing da­ta is start­ing to re­flect that, too. Giv­en the na­ture of the eco­nom­ic cri­sis we find our­selves grap­pling with, shoplift­ing has seen the most sub­stan­tial in­crease when we com­pare it to the fig­ures pub­lished in 2022. Across Eng­land and Wales, there’s been a colos­sal 25 per cent rise in shoplift­ing, ris­ing from 292,584 of­fences in 2022 to 365,164 of­fences in 2023.”

Crime no longer sea­son­al

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dau­rius Figueira told the Busi­ness Guardian that the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty will con­tin­ue to see a rise in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty through­out the Christ­mas sea­son and straight in­to Car­ni­val as, un­for­tu­nate­ly, crime is no longer rel­e­gat­ed to one sea­son but it is now part of the life in T&T.

“Busi­ness­es and pri­vate per­sons who can­not match this new op­er­a­tional re­al­i­ty with in­vest­ment will fall by the way side. Busi­ness­es and per­sons must now be aware of this rapid­ly evolv­ing en­vi­ron­ment of the modus operan­di and re­act in a pre-emp­tive man­ner es­pe­cial­ly from Christ­mas to Car­ni­val. But what is hap­pen­ing is the fact that the on­slaught is con­stant, no longer sea­son­al, there is now no slack/off sea­son for crim­i­nal­i­ty in T&T as it is di­verse, mul­ti­fac­eted and ever evolv­ing.”

He ad­vis­es busi­ness own­ers to make in­vest­ments to pro­tect their prop­er­ties from the grow­ing crim­i­nal­i­ty that ex­ists in the coun­try.

“This points to the trans­fer­ence of knowl­edge and ex­pe­ri­ence, even coach­ing from per­sons with op­er­a­tional ex­pe­ri­ence in these for­eign crime mar­kets who are now op­er­at­ing in T&T. This points to transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime mod­els in T&T. As a re­sult, busi­ness­es must now play catch up or in­vest in un­der­stand­ing the ter­rain and take pre-emp­tive ac­tion which both cost mon­ey as they de­mand ma­jor in­vest­ment in se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus that are al­so con­stant­ly evolv­ing. Busi­ness­es and pri­vate per­sons who can­not match this new op­er­a­tional re­al­i­ty with in­vest­ment will fall by the way side.”

He al­so spoke about the eco­nom­ic chal­lenges the coun­try faces and ar­gued that with­out job and oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties, cit­i­zens may feel that they have no oth­er choice but to turn to il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ty to sur­vive.

“The mur­der toll so far for 2024 has out­stripped that of 2023, rais­ing the ques­tion if 2024 is a take off plat­form for a 600+ plus year in 2025. Dri­ving this ac­cel­er­a­tion are: the on­go­ing war be­tween the have’s and the have nots as those dis­placed by the elim­i­na­tion of ma­jor fed­er­a­tions on the ground are now dis­placed and are at­tack­ing the have’s who are re­spond­ing in de­fence of their as­sets and turf and the elim­i­na­tion of new­ly formed cells seek­ing to fill the vac­u­um left by elim­i­nat­ing their play­ers and the foot sol­diers in both To­ba­go and Trinidad. This is ex­pect­ed aris­ing from what oc­curred from 2017 to 2022. These are all symp­toms of two transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime mod­els op­er­at­ing in T&T who are to­tal­ly in­com­pat­i­ble with each oth­er.”