For ven­dors at the Ed­die Hart Food Vil­lage, the de­bate over Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed joint po­lice and army posts is not about pol­i­tics; it is about sur­vival.

Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der says con­struc­tion of two ad­di­tion­al po­lice posts will be­gin this week­end, while work on po­lice post fa­cil­i­ties at the Tarou­ba In­ter­change and Ed­die Hart Sa­van­nah re­mains on track de­spite con­cerns raised over the process used to award con­tracts.

Elec­toral rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Ply­mouth/Black Rock, Kern Alex­is, is wel­com­ing a pro­pos­al for a joint po­lice-army post in Ply­mouth.

A four-week mu­si­cal camp at La Ro­maine Sec­ondary School con­clud­ed yes­ter­day with stu­dents gain­ing ex­po­sure to var­i­ous in­stru­ments and mu­sic the­o­ry as a means of bol­ster­ing dis­ci­pline and ap­pre­ci­a­tion for cul­ture at one of South Trinidad’s most stig­ma­tised schools.

The Gov­ern­ment is prepar­ing to im­pose wa­ter re­stric­tions as Trinidad and To­ba­go braces for a pro­longed dry spell, with Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath con­firm­ing that con­ser­va­tion mea­sures could be an­nounced with­in days.

A teenage busi­ness­man was ar­rest­ed on Thurs­day, af­ter of­fi­cers searched his West­moor­ings home and re­cov­ered two firearms and a quan­ti­ty of am­mu­ni­tion.

Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) have been is­sued for two men in con­nec­tion with miss­ing firearms and am­mu­ni­tion stolen from the San Fer­nan­do Mu­nic­i­pal Po­lice Sta­tion in April.

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s re­port­ed par­tic­i­pa­tion in a Unit­ed States-led re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ini­tia­tive has di­vid­ed se­cu­ri­ty ex­perts, with some de­scrib­ing it as an im­por­tant step in tack­ling transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime while oth­ers warn it could ex­pose the coun­try to new le­gal, diplo­mat­ic and geopo­lit­i­cal risks.

De­spite par­tic­i­pat­ing in a po­lice re­cruit­ment ex­er­cise in To­ba­go, many fe­male ap­pli­cants ad­mit­ted to be­ing pet­ri­fied of the crime sit­u­a­tion in the coun­try.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has de­fend­ed its de­ploy­ment of mo­bile po­lice units, de­scrib­ing them as a crit­i­cal com­po­nent of its an­ti-crime strat­e­gy amid pub­lic de­bate over the ini­tia­tive.

Con­struc­tion is un­der­way on a con­crete foun­da­tion for a po­lice post at the Tarou­ba In­ter­change a day af­ter the foun­da­tion for two were laid along the east-west cor­ri­dor. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­sist­ed that noth­ing will stop her Gov­ern­ment’s plan to es­tab­lish a net­work of po­lice posts in com­mu­ni­ties.

Win­ning the fight against crime re­quires more than force, as last­ing re­duc­tions in crime oc­cur when strong en­force­ment is matched by equal­ly strong in­vest­ments in peo­ple, fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties, says In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira.