Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Con­trib­u­tor

Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Bar­ry Padarath says crime was al­lowed to spi­ral out of con­trol in T&T over the past decade and Gov­ern­ment now needs to take dras­tic mea­sures to deal with it.

Padarath was speak­ing dur­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) con­sul­ta­tion on the stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion on Wednes­day at the Cal­drac Recre­ation Club in Dow Vil­lage, Cal­i­for­nia.

Padarath said crime had evolved from mur­ders and kid­nap­pings to home in­va­sions and ex­tor­tion, cul­mi­nat­ing in what he de­scribed as a “con­sor­tium of all.” He said this sit­u­a­tion has gen­er­at­ed a con­sid­er­able lev­el of fear among the pop­u­la­tion.

He ar­gued that des­per­ate times had called for dras­tic mea­sures, not­ing that cur­rent leg­is­la­tion con­tained loop­holes which failed to pro­vide house­hold­ers with ad­e­quate pro­tec­tion. He ex­plained that when cit­i­zens used force to de­fend them­selves, their cas­es were re­ferred to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions for in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the law and de­ter­mi­na­tion of whether ex­ces­sive force had been used.

Padarath not­ed that the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) had been work­ing close­ly with the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to en­sure a de­gree of pro­tec­tion.

He said, “I want to con­grat­u­late the com­mis­sion­er for align­ing the pol­i­cy of the ad­min­is­tra­tion with the op­er­a­tions of the TTPS and we can get a lot more done if you get a greater har­mon­is­ing of that re­la­tion­ship.

“The last ad­min­is­tra­tion spent a lot of time fight­ing com­mis­sion­ers of po­lice, not just one, but two and three com­mis­sion­ers of po­lice, and in the last State of Emer­gency, for­mer CoP Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher found her­self in a sit­u­a­tion where the whole coun­try’s re­sources were gripped in that sce­nario in­stead of fight­ing crime in T&T.”

Padarath said the UNC had no time to en­gage in con­flict with law en­force­ment due to po­lit­i­cal griev­ances.

“We in­tend to work along­side the CoP and the TTPS,” he said.

Ad­dress­ing crit­i­cism from the Op­po­si­tion, Padarath said, “The Op­po­si­tion and the oth­ers are par­rot­ing, ‘Why can’t you all say what is yuh crime plan’.

“It is be­cause they had no plan for five and ten years. These are the peo­ple who should be ashamed to talk about any­thing about crime in this coun­try. That same leader of the Op­po­si­tion is ask­ing if Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar is asleep.

“She (re­fer­ring to the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion) wore her py­ja­mas for ten years. You were sit­ting in the Cab­i­net in the Re­pub­lic of T&T with yuh hat and yuh night gown, yuh nigh­tee and yuh had noth­ing to say. Not one thing to say about crime in T&T.”

At­tor­ney Roshan Bab­wah, who al­so serves as chair­man of the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty, said first-world coun­tries had moved from com­mon law pro­vi­sions to stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion and had seen sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ments. He point­ed to Ire­land, where the 2011 Dwelling Act led to a 15 per cent drop in homi­cide of­fences in that same year. Bab­wah al­so cit­ed the 2019 Le­git­i­mate De­fence Act in Italy, which led to 532 few­er in­ten­tion­al homi­cides over five years and a re­duc­tion of 1.8 mil­lion theft of­fences. He not­ed that the 2010 Stand-Your-Ground law in Flori­da re­sult­ed in a de­cline in vi­o­lent crimes and home in­va­sions.