Sto­ry by RHON­DOR DOWLAT-ROS­TANT

Se­ri­ous crimes have been on the de­crease dur­ing the cur­rent COVID-19 pan­dem­ic in T&T.

This was con­firmed on Wednes­day by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, Stu­art Young, dur­ing the dai­ly me­dia brief­ing host­ed by the Min­istry of Health, on the COVID-19 sit­u­a­tion in this coun­try.

Min­is­ter Young said the de­crease in se­ri­ous crimes may al­so have been as a re­sult of the min­istry "im­ple­ment­ing a lot of op­er­a­tions to deal with it".

"I can as­sure you that a lot of work is be­ing done to keep that crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty down. The mea­sures are very spe­cif­ic mea­sures to deal with COVID-19 in try­ing to make Trinidad and To­ba­go a safer place," Young said.

The da­ta

Ac­cord­ing to sta­tis­tics sent to the Guardian Me­dia by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice's (TTPS) Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis (CA­PA) Branch, for the month of March this year, the to­tal num­ber of re­ports of se­ri­ous crimes stood at 741, with a 29 per cent de­tec­tion rate—as com­pared to 1,191 re­ports with a 37 per cent de­tec­tion rate in 2018; and 1,135 re­ports with a 33 per cent de­tec­tion rate in 2019 same pe­ri­od.

The CA­PA da­ta notes this year's fig­ure of 741 re­ports in­clud­ed 35 mur­ders; 48 re­ports of shoot­ing and wound­ing in­ci­dents; 29 re­ports of rape, in­cest and sex­u­al of­fences; and 189 re­ports of rob­beries.

Quick act­ing cops

On Tues­day, this week, at about 1 am, the quick ac­tion of po­lice of­fi­cers re­sult­ed in the pre­ven­tion of a bur­glary at a jew­el­ry store in Tu­na­puna.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, of­fi­cers were on rou­tine mo­bile pa­trol along the East­ern Main Road when they ob­served a group of men run­ning away from a jew­el­ry store.

The of­fi­cers stopped by the store to in­ves­ti­gate and ob­served sev­er­al bags con­tain­ing tools, which could be used to break in­to the premis­es. The bags and tools were seized, and the of­fi­cers at­tempt­ed to chase the sus­pects; how­ev­er, they es­caped.

The of­fi­cers have since re­viewed CCTV footage from build­ings near­by, and ar­rests are said to be im­mi­nent.

Po­lice en­forc­ing COVID-19 reg­u­la­tions

On March 18, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith ad­vised cit­i­zens that po­lice of­fi­cers will ramp up the en­force­ment of the coun­try's loi­ter­ing laws over the com­ing weeks in an at­tempt to keep peo­ple from as­sem­bling in large num­bers dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

In a state­ment, Grif­fith said this is be­ing done in line with the re­quest of Prime Min­is­ter and Chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, Dr Kei­th Row­ley, that the pub­lic prac­tis­es so­cial dis­tanc­ing at this time.

On March 16, PM Row­ley had called on bars to be closed, restau­rants to cur­tail their busi­ness op­er­a­tions and for cit­i­zens not to as­sem­ble in large num­bers in an ef­fort to com­bat the spread of the nov­el coro­n­avirus. How­ev­er, the CoP said while a large sec­tion of the pop­u­la­tion has ad­hered to the re­quest, he an­tic­i­pates that few would refuse to com­ply. Still, he said he hopes there would be no need to en­force the laws re­lat­ing to loi­ter­ing and as­sured that over the com­ing weeks, the TTPS would in­crease its pa­trols across the coun­try.

The Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er has as­sert­ed that the Po­lice Ser­vice will act in ac­cor­dance with Sec­tion 45 (c) of the Sum­ma­ry Of­fences Act, Chap­ter 11:02, which states:

IDLE AND DIS­OR­DER­LY PER­SONS

A per­son com­mit­ting any of the of­fences men­tioned be­low in this sec­tion may be deemed an idle and dis­or­der­ly per­son, and shall be li­able to a fine of two hun­dred dol­lars, or to im­pris­on­ment for one month—

(a) any per­son who, be­ing able by labour or oth­er law­ful means to main­tain him­self or his wife or child, where such wife or child is with­out oth­er means of sup­port, re­fus­es or ne­glects to do so

(b) any per­son wan­der­ing abroad or plac­ing him­self in any street to beg or gath­er alms, or caus­ing or procur­ing or en­cour­ag­ing any child to do so

(c) any per­son found sleep­ing or loi­ter­ing in or un­der any build­ing, in­clud­ing any open out­house, ve­ran­dah, gallery, pas­sage, or gate­way, or in any ve­hi­cle or ves­sel, with­out leave of the own­er, oc­cu­pi­er or per­son in charge there­of, or on or un­der any wharf, quay, jet­ty, bridge, foot­way, or in any street or oth­er pub­lic place, and not giv­ing a good ac­count of him­self

(d) any per­son who, with­out leave of the own­er or oc­cu­pi­er, af­fix­es any plac­ard or no­tice up­on any build­ing, wall, pil­lar, post, or fence, or oth­er­wise de­faces the same;

(e) any per­son pre­tend­ing or pro­fess­ing to tell for­tunes