DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill against crit­i­cism that its ap­proach to crime lacks so­cial in­ter­ven­tions, point­ing to a range of com­mu­ni­ty and youth pro­grammes he said would ac­com­pa­ny po­lice op­er­a­tions in des­ig­nat­ed ar­eas.

Alexan­der made the case for the leg­is­la­tion as he con­tributed to de­bate on the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day.

The bill would es­tab­lish polic­ing dis­tricts and pro­vide for spe­cial op­er­a­tions aimed at com­bat­ing crim­i­nal­i­ty.

Re­spond­ing to con­cerns about safe­guards and the ab­sence of so­cial pro­grammes in the pro­posed frame­work, Alexan­der said hu­man­i­tar­i­an and com­mu­ni­ty-based in­ter­ven­tions would form part of the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach.

He said po­lice of­fi­cers did not need spe­cif­ic leg­isla­tive au­thor­i­ty to as­sist res­i­dents.

“You don’t have to put that in law. That is a hu­man­i­tar­i­an ac­tiv­i­ty that po­lice does con­stant­ly,” Alexan­der said.

Alexan­der said he had al­ready spo­ken with Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro and that the Hearts and Minds Foun­da­tion in Laven­tille would be en­gaged in com­mu­ni­ties af­fect­ed by the op­er­a­tions.

He said vul­ner­a­ble young peo­ple from the Min­istry of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty’s Pol­i­cy and Com­mu­ni­ty Sup­port Of­fice (PAC­SO) would al­so en­ter com­mu­ni­ties and en­gage with their peers.

School polic­ing units would op­er­ate in schools with­in closed ar­eas, he said, as part of ef­forts to re­as­sure res­i­dents and re­store a sense of se­cu­ri­ty.

The ini­tia­tive, he said, was in­tend­ed to en­sure “per­sons wouldn’t be afraid any­more to live in their homes.”

Com­mu­ni­ty polic­ing will al­so be in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the re­sponse, along­side Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice youth and an­ti-bul­ly­ing pro­grammes.

Alexan­der said the min­istry’s par­ent­ing pro­gramme would al­so be tak­en in­to closed ar­eas. He ar­gued that these ini­tia­tives did not need to be writ­ten in­to the leg­is­la­tion.

“So, when you speak about ‘we are do­ing noth­ing’, we don’t have to put it in law for you to un­der­stand it. We can treat with it be­cause noth­ing is re­quired in law for a po­lice of­fi­cer to re­spond in this man­ner.”

TTPS body cams not fit for pur­pose

Alexan­der al­so ad­dressed con­cerns about po­lice body cam­eras be­ing worn dur­ing op­er­a­tions in closed ar­eas, say­ing the for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion pur­chased 130 Huawei body cam­eras in 2022, fol­lowed by 750 Getac cam­eras that he said were not fit for pur­pose.

“I can tell you, when you put on the Getac and you run from here to there, it used to fall off. The clip used to break. And you wouldn’t like to hear the sum of mon­ey that is spent for the 750,” he said.

Alexan­der said an­oth­er firm op­er­at­ed the de­vices at a cost of mil­lions of dol­lars to the state.

“Every­body wants to have ac­count­abil­i­ty and we will nev­er shy away from that. I wish I could have pur­chased body cams for even them, in here, in or­der for them to main­tain their in­tegri­ty,” he said, point­ing to­wards the Op­po­si­tion bench­es.

Alexan­der al­so clar­i­fied the num­ber of peo­ple charged fol­low­ing pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion or­ders (PDOs), say­ing the fig­ure had in­creased from 240 to 260.

Ad­dress­ing the Low­er House, Alexan­der re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that the leg­is­la­tion would cre­ate fear among res­i­dents, ar­gu­ing that com­mu­ni­ties were al­ready liv­ing with the threat of vi­o­lent crime.

“I won­der if the pop­u­la­tion wasn’t in fear with a mur­der rate of 624, were they not in fear when shoot­ings and wound­ings were hap­pen­ing right out­side their doors? Were they not afraid when the mem­ber for Cou­va North spoke about the shoot­ing of young peo­ple? And the strange and un­usu­al thing, Madam Deputy Speak­er, most of these events took place in the con­stituen­cies of per­sons that you’re look­ing at on that side.”

He ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of be­ing un­will­ing to de­fend its con­stituen­cies and mem­bers, while ar­gu­ing that pre­vi­ous an­ti-gang leg­is­la­tion had failed to pre­vent crim­i­nal gangs from op­er­at­ing.