Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

While the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty is heart­ened by the Unit­ed States’ fi­nan­cial do­na­tion to help curb gun crimes in the Caribbean, there are calls for the pub­lic to be told how that mon­ey is be­ing spent and what val­ue they will get from it.

Ahead of the high-lev­el meet­ing be­tween Cari­com lead­ers and the US Vice Pres­i­dent Ka­mala Har­ris in The Ba­hamas on Thurs­day, the White House, via a me­dia re­lease, an­nounced that the US is in­vest­ing more than $100 mil­lion in the Caribbean re­gion to crack down on weapons traf­fick­ing, help al­le­vi­ate Haiti’s hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis and sup­port cli­mate change ini­tia­tives.

A me­dia re­lease from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) lat­er that day ex­plained that a por­tion of that mon­ey will go to­wards strength­en­ing the re­cent­ly es­tab­lished Crime Gun In­tel­li­gence Unit (CGIU), as well as pro­vid­ing train­ing and men­tor­ship to aid with pros­e­cut­ing of­fend­ers.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds said this should show the Op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress that the re­cent re­gion­al sym­po­sium, which de­clared vi­o­lence as a pub­lic health is­sue, is yield­ing re­sults.

“The short­sight­ed Op­po­si­tion had deemed the con­fer­ence we had in April with the re­gion as a waste of time, but that con­fer­ence not on­ly co­a­lesced the en­tire Caribbean in re­sponse to transna­tion­al crime and firearm pro­lif­er­a­tion in the re­gion and the mur­ders and may­hem that they cause but it has, of course, at­tract­ed the at­ten­tion of our in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners in this case the Unit­ed States.”

In ad­di­tion to the sup­port the CGIU will be re­ceiv­ing, Hinds is al­so an­tic­i­pat­ing the as­sis­tance that will be of­fered in the courts.

“And of course, the US has ap­point­ed an ex­pe­ri­enced pros­e­cu­tor to act as co-or­di­na­tor for Caribbean firearms pros­e­cu­tion. You will see in the Unit­ed States, sev­er­al of their cit­i­zens have been pros­e­cut­ed for pur­chas­ing guns, le­gal as it might be in the US, to ex­port to Trinidad and To­ba­go in oth­er coun­tries. That sum­mit in April re­vealed we are all suf­fer­ing the same fate in this re­gard and in oth­er ways, so a spe­cial pros­e­cu­tor has been ap­point­ed to pay at­ten­tion to the Bi­par­ti­san Safer Com­mu­ni­ties Act of the US as it re­lates to crim­i­nal of­fences and pros­e­cut­ing per­sons for traf­fick­ing firearms in­to the re­gion and we are most hap­py about that.”

How­ev­er, crim­i­nol­o­gist, Pro­fes­sor Ramesh De­osaran, hopes at­ten­tion is al­so be­ing paid to the sup­ply side of the gun trade.

“Which means the Unit­ed States, es­pe­cial­ly the east­ern bor­der of the US, must im­prove their con­trol and pre­ven­tion mech­a­nisms, be­cause the $100M grant, if it on­ly deals with the out­come side, that is sen­tenc­ing and pros­e­cu­tion, then they need to con­trol their bor­der both in the US and re­lat­ed ar­eas and al­so in our own porous bor­ders, so if the mon­ey is to be valu­able then we need to strength­en our Coast Guard be­cause what we need are long term so­lu­tions.”

Pro­fes­sor De­osaran al­so said the mon­ey should not be spent with­out ac­count­abil­i­ty.

“We have to put in time­lines, in what pe­ri­od do you ex­pect re­sults? We have had Caribbean basin and fi­nan­cial­ly backed ini­tia­tives be­fore, and we are still wait­ing on the pos­i­tive re­sults.”

Econ­o­mist Dr Mar­lene Attzs is al­so of a sim­i­lar view. She told Guardian Me­dia that while fund­ing is im­por­tant, the pub­lic needs to see a re­turn on in­vest­ment.

“If you set up an in­sti­tu­tion­al frame­work to ad­dress a par­tic­u­lar set of is­sues there needs to be what we call mon­i­tor­ing and eval­u­a­tion so that you are sure the fi­nan­cial in­vest­ment you are mak­ing in that in­sti­tu­tion is yield­ing the kind of re­sults that you want. So, in the case of crime fight­ing, the is­sue is not so much the bud­getary al­lo­ca­tion that the min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty gets but we need to iden­ti­fy some clear met­rics.”

Dr Attzs be­lieves the pub­lic is no longer con­cerned about the fi­nances. Rather, she said they are hun­ger­ing for re­sults.

“We want to see im­proved de­tec­tion rates, clear­ance rates, im­proved re­sponse times etc. and that we are al­so work­ing to­wards build­ing the lev­el of pub­lic trust in the po­lice ser­vice. And then there is al­so, time and ef­fort to be spent di­ag­nos­ing the chang­ing face of crime so that the bench­marks and the met­rics that we use to mon­i­tor and eval­u­ate the po­lice ser­vice re­al­ly are aligned to the na­ture of the crime,” she said.