Aba A Luke

The na­tion­al state of emer­gency im­ple­ment­ed by the rul­ing Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment on Au­gust 21, re­mains in ef­fect un­til De­cem­ber. The views of the peo­ple are var­ied and every­where you turn there are opin­ions. But the re­al­i­ty is, not every­one in so­ci­ety is equipped with the knowl­edge and un­der­stand­ing of crim­i­nal­i­ty to prop­er­ly as­sess the sit­u­a­tion and make un­bi­ased, well-thought-out oral con­tri­bu­tions.

Q&A With Re­nee Cum­mings:

T&T Guardian: What are your gen­er­al thoughts as a na­tion­al of T&T, on the crime sit­u­a­tion and the mea­sure cur­rent­ly be­ing used to deal with it?

RC: As a na­tion we have found our­selves in a rather pre­car­i­ous and pe­nalised space, where per­son­al and pub­lic safe­ty have been com­pro­mised on so many lev­els and be­cause of so many rea­sons. While crack­downs on crime, co­er­cive in­ter­ven­tions and mus­cu­lar mea­sures of­ten re­ceive pop­u­lar pub­lic sup­port be­cause of high law en­force­ment vis­i­bil­i­ty, the re­search shows that such re­sults are of­ten tem­po­rary and ten­u­ous.

T&T Guardian: What are your thoughts on the coun­try's ju­di­cial sys­tem and what do you think can be done to bet­ter this arm of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty?

RC: De­ter­rence will on­ly be achieved when pun­ish­ment is cer­tain, swift and se­vere. The po­lice must catch the crim­i­nals, the courts must ad­min­is­ter jus­tice in re­al time and the pris­ons must pun­ish and re­ha­bil­i­tate. What's miss­ing, na­tion­al­ly, is so­cial reg­u­la­tion. De­ter­rence must be re­tailed with pro­gram­ming that taps in­to an in­di­vid­ual's in­ter­nal mo­ti­va­tion to obey the law be­cause law­less­ness has be­come a na­tion­al pas­time.

In some ar­eas, our ju­di­cial sys­tem seems to be ris­ing to the oc­ca­sion, the com­ing of a drug court pi­lot project is a move in the right di­rec­tion. Ther­a­peu­tic ju­rispru­dence, re­ha­bil­i­ta­tive pun­ish­ment, us­ing the law as a ther­a­peu­tic agent of change to fa­cil­i­tate and achieve ther­a­peu­tic out­comes with of­fend­ers will re­duce re­cidi­vism and the so­cial cost of crime once the ini­tia­tive is man­aged ef­fi­cient­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly us­ing a clin­i­cal re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion mod­el.

T&T Guardian: As some­one who has trav­eled, what are some of the crime fight­ing ini­tia­tives you've seen used in oth­er coun­tries that can be used here in T&T?

RC: When it comes to crime fight­ing no mat­ter how cre­ative the ideas, the most ef­fec­tive in­ter­ven­tions are based on em­pir­i­cal ev­i­dence an­chored in sol­id da­ta analy­sis. Our chal­lenge, as a na­tion, is im­ple­men­ta­tion. Our crime fight­ing ini­tia­tives must adopt a busi­ness mod­el; pro­vid­ing max­i­mum re­turn on in­vest­ment for tax­pay­er dol­lars.

Al­so re­quired are knowl­edge, in­for­ma­tion and in­no­va­tion to iden­ti­fy and dis­sem­i­nate best prac­tice for adop­tion by all law en­force­ment agen­cies and across the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, pro­vid­ing a co­or­di­nat­ed na­tion­al re­sponse, that be­gins with the stan­dard­i­s­a­tion of op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dure; and this can on­ly be achieved through a knowl­edge to prac­tice ap­proach an­chored in sci­en­tif­ic ev­i­dence and by us­ing peo­ple who are qual­i­fied and who can get the job done.

T&T Guardian: From a crim­i­nol­o­gist's per­spec­tive, what are some of the things that fu­el crime and how can these is­sues be ad­dressed in a mean­ing­ful way?

RC: There are sev­er­al ques­tions that must be asked. What is it about com­mu­ni­ty struc­ture that pro­duces dif­fer­ent crime rates? Are hot spot com­mu­ni­ties more crim­i­nal or are they sim­ply ex­posed to more crim­ino­genic struc­tur­al con­di­tions? So­cial trends al­ways par­al­lel the rise or fall in crime rates. We must ad­dress the root caus­es of vi­o­lence in our so­ci­ety and that be­gins with an un­der­stand­ing of the im­pact ear­ly ex­po­sure to vi­o­lence has on the crys­talli­sa­tion of crim­ino­genic per­son­al­i­ties.

We must start with vi­o­lence in the home, which leads to vi­o­lence in the schools and in com­mu­ni­ties. We must al­so ex­plore ed­u­ca­tion­al fail­ure, eco­nom­ic dis­par­i­ty, un­em­ploy­ment, so­cial iso­la­tion and stig­ma­ti­sa­tion, the eco­log­i­cal con­cen­tra­tion of the dis­ad­van­taged, hy­per-seg­re­gat­ed pover­ty, labour mar­kets, and gov­ern­ment poli­cies be­cause they all com­bine to cre­ate vi­o­lence, crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty.

T&T Guardian: How can every cit­i­zen as­sist in fight­ing crime?

RC: We are yet to mar­shal cit­i­zen par­tic­i­pa­tion. Cit­i­zens have a crit­i­cal role to play in crime con­trol be­cause along with law en­force­ment, cit­i­zens are co-pro­duc­ers in keep­ing a crime rate down. Com­mu­ni­ties must be equipped, us­ing a cit­i­zen se­cu­ri­ty ap­proach, with the req­ui­site re­sources to build up a stock­pile of crime pre­ven­tion skills. Com­mu­ni­ties must be em­pow­ered, res­i­dents must be mo­bilised in the fight against crime, and part­ner­ships must be forged be­tween law en­force­ment and the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

So­cial pro­gram­ming must im­prove neigh­bour­hood so­cial cap­i­tal and im­prove pro-so­cial and in­for­mal so­cial con­trols that have erod­ed over time. Vi­o­lence pre­ven­tion cor­re­lates with col­lec­tive ef­fi­ca­cy and ca­pac­i­ty build­ing. Com­mu­ni­ties must be em­pow­ered with the ca­pac­i­ty to pre­vent vi­o­lence and pro­tect it­self. If we put the fo­cus on youth vi­o­lence, child mal­treat­ment, in­ti­mate part­ner vi­o­lence, al­co­hol and sub­stance abuse, we may be shocked at a most sig­nif­i­cant long-term de­crease in crime. You can't ar­rest your way out of crime prob­lem. Gov­ern­ment must re­frame the role of cit­i­zens in the fight against crime.

T&T Guardian: Do you think there is hope-can it all be cleaned up, re­al­is­ti­cal­ly?

RC: Mis­placed as­sump­tions sur­round­ing per­cep­tions of crime of­ten cre­ate moral pan­ic and gen­er­ate some very emo­tion­al re­spons­es. To re­duce crime it must be prop­er­ly un­der­stood with­in the con­text of a broad­er range of in­se­cu­ri­ties. Gov­ern­ment must de­sign poli­cies and pro­gram­ming to treat with all ex­pres­sions of vi­o­lence in our so­ci­ety. Hope will be re­alised when we stop as­sail­ing at-risk fam­i­lies and start as­sist­ing them in de­vel­op­ing more pro­tec­tive fac­tors as buffers to the many risks they face. What we need to do is build re­silien­cy in com­mu­ni­ties where there is a large crim­ino­genic clus­ter.

T&T Guardian: Was a na­tion­al State of Emer­gency nec­es­sary in T&T at this time? Could some­thing less dras­tic have been done to curb the crime sit­u­a­tion?

RC: Short-term mea­sures may yield quick re­duc­tions in the homi­cide rate but how will it be sus­tained af­ter the State of Emer­gency has been lift­ed? You can't force a crime rate down. Short-term gains of­ten fiz­zle and an over re­liance on re­pres­sive ac­tions will present a dif­fi­cult chal­lenge once the eu­phor­ic high of this po­lit­i­cal­ly-al­tered and ar­ti­fi­cial state of re­duced fear is re­moved.

T&T Guardian: How does crime hurt a na­tion's econ­o­my?

RC: Crime sti­fles na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment as it threat­ens the foun­da­tions of sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment. It al­so drains state re­sources be­cause crime fight­ing is a cost­ly ven­ture and de­mands big bud­gets. It is a dev­as­tat­ing cost to de­vel­op­ment be­cause high crime de­ters in­vest­ment.

T&T Guardian: What is your wish for T&T as a na­tion­al?

RC: We must do every­thing in our pow­er to en­cour­age our youth to take con­struc­tive av­enues, be­cause if we don't they will end up on the road of crime. Young peo­ple need struc­tured pro­grammes that of­fer hope, en­cour­age dreams and fos­ter a be­lief that suc­cess is in­deed pos­si­ble.