Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says her Gov­ern­ment must work hard­er to en­sure peo­ple in the coun­try feel safer, and she as­sures that stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion will be brought to Par­lia­ment be­fore the end of this year, 2025.

Her com­ments come af­ter a vi­o­lent home in­va­sion near her Phillip­ine res­i­dence left a fam­i­ly of sev­en se­vere­ly trau­ma­tised.

The Prime Min­is­ter said that while mur­ders and oth­er se­ri­ous crimes have de­creased, some cit­i­zens may still not feel safer.

“We need to clamp down on home in­va­sions, ve­hi­cle thefts, and rob­beries. While the sta­tis­tics are show­ing an ac­tu­al de­cline, the cit­i­zens are not sens­ing or feel­ing a de­crease in fear. This is be­cause of the years of trau­ma from vi­o­lent crime and mur­ders. We have to work hard­er to im­prove on the gains made thus far,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

Ac­knowl­edg­ing the at­tack on the fam­i­ly in Phillip­ine yes­ter­day, the Prime Min­is­ter said she plans to have the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, and Jus­tice Min­is­ter meet with new Chief Jus­tice Ron­nie Boodoos­ingh to dis­cuss ways the Gov­ern­ment can as­sist to im­prove ju­di­cial ef­fi­cien­cy.

Home in­va­sions have been a wor­ry­ing is­sue in this coun­try for the last few years. In May last year, po­lice re­port­ed that bur­glar­ies and rob­beries were on the rise in the To­ba­go, Cen­tral, North-Cen­tral, North-East­ern, and Port-of-Spain di­vi­sions.

Dur­ing her in­au­gur­al ad­dress to the na­tion af­ter be­ing sworn in as Prime Min­is­ter in May, Per­sad-Bisses­sar pledged a safer Trinidad and To­ba­go in six months.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, she said, “This is why I am bring­ing the stand-your-ground laws and leg­is­la­tion to make le­gal firearms more ac­ces­si­ble. This will em­pow­er cit­i­zens to give them a fight­ing chance as a last line of de­fence against home in­va­sions and rob­beries.”

Ear­li­er this week, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie con­firmed that the stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion, of­fi­cial­ly ti­tled the Home In­va­sion (Self-De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill, 2025, will be brought to Par­lia­ment be­fore the end of the year. How­ev­er, he did not re­spond to fol­low-up ques­tions re­gard­ing the ex­act tim­ing of its in­tro­duc­tion or its cur­rent stage of readi­ness.

But the Prime Min­is­ter said that sev­er­al oth­er pieces of leg­is­la­tion aimed at cre­at­ing a safer so­ci­ety will al­so be brought to Par­lia­ment for de­bate in the fi­nal weeks of this year.

“In ad­di­tion to the stand-your-ground laws, leg­is­la­tion on the use of fire­works will soon be brought to Par­lia­ment, al­so. The AG is work­ing on the leg­is­la­tion re­gard­ing the in­crease in ages for the sale and use of gan­ja and al­co­hol, and for par­tic­i­pat­ing in gam­bling. All of these are be­ing tar­get­ed for pas­sage in the Par­lia­ment this year.”

Asked whether or not this was an am­bi­tious leg­isla­tive agen­da, con­sid­er­ing there are on­ly a few weeks left in 2025, the Prime Min­is­ter said, “I think it’s pos­si­ble. We have to try.”

Ear­li­er this week, the Prime Min­is­ter said that the Unit­ed States’ mil­i­tary ki­net­ic strikes on sus­pect­ed drug ves­sels have led to a de­cline, and ef­fec­tive­ly, a short­age, of il­le­gal drugs en­ter­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro agreed with Per­sad-Bisses­sar that the re­cent tar­get­ed US bomb­ings of sev­er­al sus­pect­ed drug-smug­gling ves­sels off the coast of Venezuela have al­ready had a “mea­sur­able im­pact” on T&T’s drug trade.