An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

While two se­cu­ri­ty an­a­lysts have en­dorsed the con­tin­ued tenure of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro as he em­barks on his sec­ond year in of­fice, they in­sist that sus­tain­abil­i­ty will be key to main­tain­ing the gains achieved dur­ing his first year.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad de­scribed the sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tion in vi­o­lent crime as the strongest in­di­ca­tor of progress un­der Gue­var­ro’s lead­er­ship, while re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Dr Garvin Heer­ah said, “From a re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty per­spec­tive, the Com­mis­sion­er must first be com­mend­ed for sev­er­al pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ments achieved thus far.”

Re­flect­ing on the past 12 months, Heer­ah said there had been vis­i­ble ef­forts to strength­en op­er­a­tional polic­ing ini­tia­tives, en­hance in­tel­li­gence-led polic­ing, tar­get gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties, im­prove in­ter-agency col­lab­o­ra­tion, and mod­ernise cer­tain ar­eas of polic­ing in­fra­struc­ture and tech­nol­o­gy.

He said the TTPS ap­peared to be mov­ing in the right di­rec­tion, not­ing that in­creased na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tions sur­round­ing crime re­duc­tion strate­gies, com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment and strate­gic polic­ing re­forms in­di­cat­ed ef­forts were be­ing made to repo­si­tion the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) as a more in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven and ac­count­able or­gan­i­sa­tion.

UWI head: De­clines tied to CoP’s lead­er­ship

Seep­er­sad, head of the Crim­i­nol­o­gy De­part­ment at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine cam­pus, said Gue­var­ro’s suc­cess was un­der­scored by the sharp de­cline in mur­ders record­ed over the past year, re­vers­ing the alarm­ing up­ward trend ob­served in re­cent years.

“While crit­ics ar­gue that the de­crease was heav­i­ly in­flu­enced by the State of Emer­gency mea­sures im­ple­ment­ed dur­ing the pe­ri­od, the ef­fec­tive­ness of those mea­sures de­pend­ed great­ly on the man­ner in which the Po­lice Ser­vice was man­aged and de­ployed un­der Gue­var­ro’s com­mand,” he said.

Seep­er­sad not­ed that the co­or­di­nat­ed use of in­tel­li­gence-led polic­ing, tar­get­ed an­ti-gang op­er­a­tions, in­creased vis­i­bil­i­ty in crime hotspots, and the tac­ti­cal dis­rup­tion of or­gan­ised crim­i­nal net­works demon­strat­ed a lev­el of op­er­a­tional con­trol and dis­ci­pline that was crit­i­cal to the suc­cess­es achieved dur­ing the State of Emer­gency (SoE).

“The State of Emer­gency alone could not have pro­duced re­sults with­out pru­dent lead­er­ship, de­ci­sive de­ploy­ment strate­gies, and sus­tained pres­sure on crim­i­nal el­e­ments by the TTPS,” he in­sist­ed.

Seep­er­sad added that Gue­var­ro had al­so dis­tin­guished him­self through a more as­sertive and op­er­a­tional style of lead­er­ship.

“His tenure has pro­ject­ed an im­age of stronger com­mand pres­ence with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice, with greater em­pha­sis placed on in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing, tac­ti­cal readi­ness, and proac­tive polic­ing.”

The UWI aca­d­e­m­ic said sup­port­ers had cred­it­ed Gue­var­ro with restor­ing a sense of di­rec­tion and ur­gency to the TTPS at a time when pub­lic frus­tra­tion over vi­o­lent crime was at its peak. He al­so ar­gued that the Com­mis­sion­er’s back­ground in in­tel­li­gence and spe­cial op­er­a­tions had shaped a polic­ing strat­e­gy fo­cused on an­tic­i­pat­ing crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty rather than mere­ly re­act­ing to it.

Ac­cord­ing to Seep­er­sad, this has con­tributed to a grow­ing per­cep­tion that the po­lice ser­vice is once again tak­ing a more ag­gres­sive stance against gangs, il­le­gal firearms and or­gan­ised crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

How­ev­er, he cau­tioned that de­spite these gains, pub­lic con­fi­dence in polic­ing and the wider crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem re­mained mixed, and the long-term sus­tain­abil­i­ty of re­cent im­prove­ments was still un­cer­tain.

“Many cit­i­zens con­tin­ue to fear vi­o­lent crime and re­main un­con­vinced that the un­der­ly­ing caus­es of crim­i­nal­i­ty—such as gang re­cruit­ment, il­le­gal firearm traf­fick­ing, weak pros­e­cu­tion sys­tems, and com­mu­ni­ty dis­trust—have been fun­da­men­tal­ly ad­dressed,” he said.

While Gue­var­ro had shown mea­sur­able suc­cess in op­er­a­tional crime sup­pres­sion, Seep­er­sad ar­gued that deep­er in­sti­tu­tion­al re­form with­in both the TTPS and the coun­try re­mained a work in progress.

He sug­gest­ed that any com­pre­hen­sive ap­proach to crime re­duc­tion must ex­tend be­yond the po­lice ser­vice and in­volve mul­ti­ple min­istries and sec­tors.

Nev­er­the­less, he con­clud­ed: “Ap­proach­ing his first an­niver­sary in of­fice, Gue­var­ro’s lead­er­ship can rea­son­ably be viewed as ef­fec­tive and re­sults-ori­ent­ed.”

Re­gion­al ex­pert: More im­prove­ment need­ed

Heer­ah said any as­sess­ment of the Com­mis­sion­er’s per­for­mance should be con­duct­ed through a bal­anced, pro­fes­sion­al, ob­jec­tive and ev­i­dence-based frame­work that care­ful­ly eval­u­ates both achieve­ments and short­com­ings.

Such an ex­er­cise, he ar­gued, should move be­yond po­lit­i­cal nar­ra­tives, emo­tion­al re­ac­tions, iso­lat­ed in­ci­dents and head­line-dri­ven pub­lic per­cep­tions, fo­cus­ing in­stead on mea­sur­able lead­er­ship im­pact, op­er­a­tional ef­fec­tive­ness, in­sti­tu­tion­al trans­for­ma­tion, pub­lic con­fi­dence and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty out­comes.

De­scrib­ing the of­fice of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice as one of the most crit­i­cal po­si­tions with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ar­chi­tec­ture, Heer­ah not­ed that the role in­volved not on­ly fight­ing crime but al­so lead­ing a com­plex in­sti­tu­tion op­er­at­ing un­der im­mense pres­sure from or­gan­ised crim­i­nal net­works, gang vi­o­lence, transna­tion­al threats, pub­lic scruti­ny, tech­no­log­i­cal change, and grow­ing de­mands for ac­count­abil­i­ty and pro­fes­sion­al­ism.

As such, he said, any mean­ing­ful as­sess­ment must take in­to ac­count both the re­al­i­ties and con­straints un­der which the TTPS cur­rent­ly op­er­ates.

“While progress is ev­i­dent in some ar­eas, sig­nif­i­cant op­por­tu­ni­ties re­main for im­prove­ment if long-term pub­lic con­fi­dence and in­sti­tu­tion­al trans­for­ma­tion are to be achieved,” he said.

Ac­cord­ing to Heer­ah, one of the most crit­i­cal ar­eas re­quir­ing con­tin­ued strength­en­ing is me­dia man­age­ment and pub­lic com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

“In to­day’s en­vi­ron­ment, polic­ing is not on­ly op­er­a­tional, but psy­cho­log­i­cal and in­for­ma­tion­al,” he ex­plained.

“Pub­lic con­fi­dence is heav­i­ly in­flu­enced by com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy, trans­paren­cy, con­sis­ten­cy of mes­sag­ing, and the abil­i­ty of lead­er­ship to re­as­sure cit­i­zens dur­ing pe­ri­ods of cri­sis or na­tion­al con­cern.”

He urged the TTPS to con­tin­ue im­prov­ing its com­mu­ni­ca­tion ar­chi­tec­ture, in­clud­ing cri­sis com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­to­cols, pub­lic en­gage­ment mech­a­nisms and the time­ly dis­sem­i­na­tion of ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion.

“Greater vis­i­bil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty from lead­er­ship can sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­prove pub­lic trust and re­duce mis­in­for­ma­tion, fear and spec­u­la­tion,” he ad­vised.

In­ter­nal­ly, Heer­ah said, the man­age­ment and trans­for­ma­tion of the TTPS re­mained equal­ly im­por­tant. While in­fra­struc­ture up­grades and tech­no­log­i­cal mod­erni­sa­tion had shown signs of progress, he said sus­tained at­ten­tion must be giv­en to fleet man­age­ment, op­er­a­tional re­sources, dig­i­tal polic­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties, re­cruit­ment, re­ten­tion, pro­mo­tions and of­fi­cer wel­fare.

He al­so linked of­fi­cer morale di­rect­ly to op­er­a­tional ef­fi­cien­cy and pro­fes­sion­al­ism.

“Of­fi­cers must feel sup­port­ed, fair­ly treat­ed, ad­e­quate­ly equipped, and pro­fes­sion­al­ly val­ued,” he said.

“Lead­er­ship must there­fore con­tin­ue fo­cus­ing on or­gan­i­sa­tion­al cul­ture, ac­count­abil­i­ty, train­ing, suc­ces­sion plan­ning, and restor­ing pride and con­fi­dence with­in the in­sti­tu­tion it­self.”

He al­so stressed that the pub­lic in­creas­ing­ly ex­pects not on­ly ar­rests, but suc­cess­ful con­vic­tions and the vis­i­ble dis­man­tling of or­gan­ised crim­i­nal struc­tures.

“Equal­ly im­por­tant is the broad­er ques­tion of whether cit­i­zens gen­uine­ly feel safer,” Heer­ah said.

“Pub­lic per­cep­tion of safe­ty re­mains one of the most pow­er­ful in­di­ca­tors of polic­ing ef­fec­tive­ness.”

“Even where sta­tis­ti­cal im­prove­ments may ex­ist, fear of crime, vi­o­lent in­ci­dents, and com­mu­ni­ty in­se­cu­ri­ty con­tin­ue to af­fect na­tion­al morale and pub­lic con­fi­dence.”

He urged Gue­var­ro to re­main com­mit­ted to strength­en­ing pub­lic trust, en­hanc­ing in­tel­li­gence ca­pa­bil­i­ties, im­prov­ing in­ter­nal morale, ac­cel­er­at­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions and pros­e­cu­tions, and mod­ernising the TTPS in­to a high­ly pro­fes­sion­al, ac­count­able and tech­no­log­i­cal­ly ca­pa­ble law en­force­ment in­sti­tu­tion.

“The Com­mis­sion­er has laid im­por­tant foun­da­tions, but main­tain­ing mo­men­tum, ad­dress­ing in­sti­tu­tion­al weak­ness­es, and de­liv­er­ing mea­sur­able long-term out­comes will ul­ti­mate­ly de­fine the lega­cy and ef­fec­tive­ness of the present polic­ing lead­er­ship.”