Both Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds have ac­knowl­edged that the coun­try’s crime sit­u­a­tion is “hor­ren­dous”.

“I can’t re­call a pe­ri­od of time, in a pe­ri­od of weeks, such vi­cious­ness of crime and fre­quen­cy of crime in and among fam­i­ly mem­bers, and out on the street. It was just a while ago that I made a com­ment that we are a vi­o­lent so­ci­ety and ap­par­ent­ly, peo­ple are at­tempt­ing to prove that state­ment true,” Dr Row­ley said about the coun­try’s crime spike on May 12.

In the last two weeks, the Sun­day Guardian ex­am­ined crime sta­tis­tics pro­vid­ed by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice for crimes com­mit­ted in the last six months.

Be­tween No­vem­ber 2021 and April 2022, there were 285 mur­ders; 1,145 rob­beries; 812 break­ing of­fences; 263 sex­u­al of­fences and 1,802 as­saults, ac­cord­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Ac­cord­ing to the TTPS's da­ta, the most dan­ger­ous place in Trinidad and To­ba­go in the last six months–with the most num­ber of mur­ders, sex­u­al of­fences, break-ins and rob­beries com­mit­ted dur­ing that pe­ri­od–is Ari­ma and en­vi­rons.

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly one in every 11 mur­ders, sex­u­al of­fences, break-ins or rob­beries com­mit­ted since No­vem­ber 2021 took place in Ari­ma–233 cas­es of a to­tal of 2,505 cas­es.

The sec­ond most dan­ger­ous place in T&T, based on the TTPS's sta­tis­tics from the last six months, is Ch­agua­nas. The bor­ough of Ch­agua­nas ac­count­ed for eight per cent of all mur­ders, sex­u­al of­fences, rob­beries or break-ins.

Port-of-Spain fol­lowed with 183 of­fences, or 7.3 per cent; San Juan/Barataria with 118 of­fences, or 4.7 per cent; and San Fer­nan­do was sta­tis­ti­cal­ly the fifth most dan­ger­ous place in T&T with 114 of­fences or 4.55 per cent; with St Joseph sixth with 109 of­fences, Cou­va sev­enth with 106 of­fences and Diego Mar­tin eighth with 105 of­fences.

You are al­so most like­ly to have your house bro­ken in­to or robbed in Ari­ma, Ch­agua­nas and Port-of-Spain, as these ar­eas, once again, sta­tis­ti­cal­ly topped the charts. 9.8 per cent or 191 of­fences took place in Ari­ma; 8.6 per cent or 169 of­fences took place in Ch­agua­nas; and 6.23 per cent or 122 of­fences in Port-of-Spain.

Port-of-Spain was fol­lowed by San Juan/Barataria with 69 of­fences, then St Joseph, Arou­ca, Cou­va, Diego Mar­tin and Cunu­pia.

Look­ing specif­i­cal­ly at homi­cides, Ari­ma topped the charts again, with ap­prox­i­mate­ly one in every ten homi­cides in the last six months tak­ing place in Ari­ma and en­vi­rons.

Out of the 285 mur­ders dur­ing that pe­ri­od, 27 were com­mit­ted in Ari­ma, mak­ing it the dead­liest place in Trinidad and To­ba­go. The sec­ond dead­liest places in the coun­try, dur­ing that pe­ri­od, were Port-of-Spain and Ch­agua­nas with 8.8 per cent each of the to­tal homi­cides, or 25 homi­cides each.

Kevin Charles washes down blood following the deadly midmorning shooting of six men at Desperlie Crescent, Laventille, in November 2021.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

San Juan/Barataria and Mor­vant ac­count­ed for 5.3 per cent each, or 15 homi­cides. Diego Mar­tin and San Fer­nan­do fol­lowed with 14 homi­cides each, and San­gre Grande and Cou­va were right be­hind with ten homi­cides each.

Arou­ca, Bel­mont and Mon Re­pos each record­ed eight mur­ders.

Ex­am­in­ing the homi­cide rate for 2022 so far, up un­til the end of April, there were 180 homi­cides, ac­cord­ing to TTPS's da­ta.

The Po­lice Di­vi­sion with the most homi­cides, so far, is the North­ern Di­vi­sion with 34. North­ern Di­vi­sion–which in­cludes po­lice sta­tions in St Joseph, Ari­ma, Arou­ca, Cu­mu­to, La Hor­quet­ta, Mal­abar, Mal­oney, Mara­cas/St Joseph, Pi­ar­co and Tu­na­puna–is tra­di­tion­al­ly the most mur­der­ous di­vi­sion.

In the pre­vi­ous three years–2019, 2020 and 2021–there have been 377 mur­ders.

How­ev­er, in­ter­est­ing­ly, the num­ber of homi­cides in the North­ern Di­vi­sion for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary to April 2022 (34 homi­cides) is be­low the av­er­age for the same pe­ri­od in the years 2019, 2020 and 2021 (42.6 homi­cides).

South West­ern and West­ern show slight de­cline

The South West­ern Di­vi­sion–which in­cludes po­lice sta­tions in Siparia, Point Fortin, Ce­dros, Erin, Fyz­abad, Guapo, La Brea, Oropouche and Pe­nal–av­er­aged 11.3 homi­cides for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary to April for the years 2019, 2020 and 2021.

There have been ten homi­cides in the di­vi­sion for the cur­rent cal­en­dar year.

The homi­cide rate for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary to April in the West­ern Di­vi­sion–which in­cludes po­lice sta­tions in St James, Care­nage, Diego Mar­tin, and Mar­aval–de­clined slight­ly from an av­er­age of 20.6 per cent (for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary to April in 2019 to 2021) to 19 per cent for the same pe­ri­od in 2022.

All nine oth­er po­lice di­vi­sions in­creased in homi­cides in com­par­i­son to the rates for the pe­ri­od Jan­u­ary to April for the years 2019-2021.

In 2022 so far, there have been 27 mur­ders in the South­ern Di­vi­sion–which in­cludes po­lice sta­tions in San Fer­nan­do, Bar­rack­pore, Gas­par­il­lo, Mara­bel­la, Mon Re­pos, Moru­ga, Princes Town, Debe, Clax­ton Bay, Ste Madeleine and St Mary’s.

Com­par­a­tive­ly, for the same pe­ri­od, 2019 to 2021, there was an av­er­age of 16.3 homi­cides.

There have been 31 homi­cides in the Cen­tral Di­vi­sion up un­til the end of April 2022 so far. Com­par­a­tive­ly, the av­er­age in the di­vi­sion for the same pe­ri­od, 2019 to 2021, was 19 homi­cides.

In the East­ern Di­vi­sion–which in­cludes po­lice sta­tions in To­co, Man­zanil­la, Biche, Matelot, Matu­ra, Ma­yaro, Rio Claro and Va­len­cia–there have been 17 homi­cides in 2022 up un­til the end of April. The av­er­age for the same pe­ri­od, 2019 to 2021, was 8.3 homi­cides.

In the North-East­ern Di­vi­sion–which in­cludes po­lice sta­tions in Mor­vant, Barataria, Blan­chisseuse, Mara­cas Bay Vil­lage, San­ta Cruz and San Juan–there have been 21 homi­cides in 2022 up un­til the end of April. The av­er­age for the same pe­ri­od, 2019 to 2021, was 15.3 homi­cides.

In the Port-of-Spain Di­vi­sion–which in­cludes po­lice sta­tions in Port-of-Spain, Bel­mont, St Clair, Wood­brook and Laven­tille–there have been 19 homi­cides so far.

The av­er­age for the same pe­ri­od, Jan­u­ary to April, in 2019 to 2021 was 16 homi­cides.

The To­ba­go Di­vi­sion–in­clud­ing po­lice sta­tions in Scar­bor­ough, Char­lot­teville, Crown Point, Mo­ri­ah, Rox­bor­ough and Mt Pleas­ant–has reg­is­tered two homi­cides for 2022 so far, com­pared to an av­er­age of 1.6 homi­cides from 2019 to 2021 for the same pe­ri­od.

While Ari­ma was sta­tis­ti­cal­ly the most like­ly place for some­one to get mur­dered or robbed in the last six months, the most sex­u­al of­fences were com­mit­ted in Port-of-Spain.

Out of 263 re­port­ed sex­u­al of­fences be­tween No­vem­ber 2021 and April 2022, 36 took place in the cap­i­tal city, ac­count­ing for 13.7 per cent of all sex­u­al of­fences.

San Fer­nan­do had the sec­ond most of­fences with 26, fol­lowed by Scar­bor­ough and en­vi­rons with 21 of­fences, and Buc­coo and en­vi­rons with 18 of­fences.

Over­all, To­ba­go ac­count­ed for 22 per cent of all re­port­ed sex­u­al of­fences, de­spite on­ly hav­ing a to­tal pop­u­la­tion of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 60,874 peo­ple (ac­cord­ing to the 2011 cen­sus).

Com­par­a­tive­ly, Ari­ma and San Fer­nan­do to­geth­er ac­count­ed for 15.6 per cent of all re­port­ed sex­u­al of­fences, de­spite hav­ing a joint ap­prox­i­mate pop­u­la­tion of 82,444 peo­ple (ac­cord­ing to the 2011 cen­sus).

Crim­i­nol­o­gists weigh in

Criminologist Dr Randy Seepersad

Ac­cord­ing to crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad, he has not been able to ex­am­ine the sta­tis­tics re­quired to de­ter­mine if there seems to be a shift from the usu­al “hotspots”, re­sult­ing in vi­o­lent crimes spread­ing more across dif­fer­ent ar­eas of the coun­try.

Dr Seep­er­sad said that hav­ing stud­ied crime spa­tial dis­tri­b­u­tion da­ta in the past, he ob­served that there was spa­tial sta­bil­i­ty, mean­ing that the ar­eas that were con­sid­ered dan­ger­ous or safe tend­ed to re­main that way.

How­ev­er, he said it was worth ex­am­in­ing whether COVID may have changed that.

“I can’t an­swer your ques­tion with­out hav­ing analysed more re­cent trends to see if there has been a shift. My guess, be­cause of COVID, is that there might be some kind of shift,” Dr Seep­er­sad said.

“It’s an anom­aly be­cause things are dif­fer­ent now be­cause of COVID and the kind of shocks the econ­o­my would have ex­pe­ri­enced, right. This is some­thing that is un­prece­dent­ed and moves away from any­thing we’ve ex­pe­ri­enced be­fore. This is some­thing that is dras­tic, in terms of ef­fects on the econ­o­my. So the ques­tion you’re rais­ing there is in­deed a good one be­cause what it could sug­gest or what it (the pan­dem­ic) could en­cour­age is a shift away or a broad­en­ing of the ar­eas we typ­i­cal­ly see crimes com­mit­ted in or an in­crease in crimes in ar­eas that may have been typ­i­cal­ly low crime ar­eas. But, I’m not say­ing that hap­pened.”

Mean­while, Dr Dau­rius Figueira said while he doesn’t have sta­tis­tics to show whether crime is spread­ing more across the coun­try, he has fol­lowed trends.

Ac­cord­ing to the TTPS, 38 per cent of all homi­cides this year so far have been as a re­sult of gang vi­o­lence, and Dr Figueira said that fig­ure was ac­cel­er­at­ing com­pared to pre­vi­ous years.

He be­lieved the in­flux of il­le­gal guns in­to the coun­try is wreak­ing hav­oc across many parts of the coun­try.

“Since 2021, guns are shar­ing out like it’s sweet­ie. They just hand them the weapon and al­low them to make may­hem,” he said.

“All the (lo­cal) low-lev­el gang mem­bers, who were armed by Colom­bians (Colom­bian car­tel), they not on­ly look­ing to kill play­ers, they’re putting down work on old peo­ple. They are putting down work on any­body. They are rob­bing cred­it unions in To­ba­go and that is what es­ca­lates the vi­o­lence.”

Ac­cord­ing to Figueira, who is al­so an au­thor, the es­ca­la­tion in vi­o­lent crime be­gan in 2020 when the Mex­i­can car­tel took con­trol of the ground, re­sult­ing in the Colom­bian car­tel step­ping up its at­tempt to re­sume con­trol.

“The Colom­bian dons start­ed shar­ing out guns to the have-nots and that es­ca­lat­ed crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go. But one of the side ef­fects of shar­ing out guns like it’s sweet­ie is now they start­ed to look to kill lo­cal af­fil­i­ates of the Mex­i­cans. And when you go to kill af­fil­i­ates of the Mex­i­cans, the blow­back from that is graph­ic vi­o­lence to get rid of you,” he said.

“When you are strug­gling fi­nan­cial­ly, where are you get­ting the mon­ey to be tot­ing all that fire­pow­er you have? The ones who are strug­gling fi­nan­cial­ly are killing each oth­er, killing their wives, and their child moth­ers. They are killing men who bounce their cars. That’s a dif­fer­ent re­al­i­ty.”

He said the war on the streets will on­ly end when the peo­ple on ei­ther side of the dis­pute kill off those they want dead.

Ac­cord­ing to Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice es­ti­mates, there are at least 12,000 il­le­gal guns in the coun­try

Box

Top ar­eas for killings

*Ari­ma (27)

*Port-of-Spain and Ch­agua­nas (25 each)

*San Juan/Barataria and Mor­vant (15 each)

*Diego Mar­tin and San Fer­nan­do (14 each)

*San­gre Grande and Cou­va (10)