Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior po­lit­i­cal re­porter

The Op­po­si­tion UNC's gen­er­al elec­tion man­i­festo plans in­clude rais­ing the le­gal age for mar­i­jua­na use and gam­bling to 25 years and old­er, sup­port­ing vic­tims of crime with jobs and hous­ing - and in­tro­duc­ing a con­sti­tu­tion­al right for an ac­cused per­son to have a tri­al with­in a rea­son­able time.

UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who re­vealed some of the par­ty's man­i­festo on Mon­day night, said her Gov­ern­ment will al­so con­sid­er in­tro­duc­ing a sys­tem of mon­e­tary re­wards for po­lice of­fi­cers and di­vi­sions where crime is kept low

And there will be no prop­er­ty tax or in­creas­es in wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty rates in this dire eco­nom­ic cli­mate.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar un­veiled the plans at the par­ty's Mon­day Night Re­port at its Ch­agua­nas head­quar­ters.

She said the UNC has its draft man­i­festo and the first copy will be un­veiled on­line lat­er.

"We're out front, we're ready for this gen­er­al elec­tion when­ev­er it's called ... Put some steel in your back­bone - this elec­tion will not be easy. This is the moth­er of all elec­tions for us," she warned.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in­stead of dis­trac­tions about chang­ing the Coat of Arms, "Gov­ern­ment would bet­ter serve peo­ple by fo­cus­ing on the 'Boats of Arms' and am­mu­ni­tion ar­riv­ing freely which cre­at­ed an un­prece­dent­ed crime wave."

"We're eight months in­to 2024, and al­ready, the mur­der rate as of (Sun­day) is over 400! Every na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter and com­mis­sion­er of po­lice ap­point­ed by the PNM in the last nine years has failed," she said.

She added, "The on­ly things that caused a slow­down in crime were COVID-19 and the lock­downs. Dur­ing COVID, we saw two-tier polic­ing where the eat-a-food fake elites and Gov­ern­ment's friends were al­lowed by the po­lice to have pool par­ties and wed­dings. Av­er­age cit­i­zens were ha­rassed, ter­rorised, fined, and tick­et­ed for be­ing in their pri­vate cars with fam­i­ly mem­bers or hav­ing a fam­i­ly get-to­geth­er at home. The Gov­ern­ment and po­lice used COVID lock­downs to sup­press dis­sent and any protests but they al­lowed high friends, fam­i­ly, and fi­nanciers to have events."

Re­fer­ring to the PNM's track record on crime she said, "For the last nine years, there's been an out-of-con­trol crime spree be­cause they have no plan or pol­i­cy, on­ly ar­ro­gance, and in­ter­fer­ence in se­lec­tion of a CoP...

"First, they by­passed the top three se­lec­tions; one, Du­lalchan, two, Philips and three, Williams, to hand­pick the fourth-ranked per­son, Gary Grif­fith.

"Dur­ing Grif­fith's time, we had 2018 (523 mur­ders), 2019 (539 mur­ders), 2020 (COVID's many months of lock­downs, 396 mur­ders), 2021 (448 mur­ders) - 1,906 mur­ders span­ning the years 2018 to 2021 un­der Grif­fith. The PNM in­ter­fered and put the fourth-ranked per­son.

"Then they in­ter­fered to in­ter­cept the mer­it list to kick out Grif­fith. They hand­picked Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob (2022 - 613 mur­ders). Then they chose Er­la (2023 – 577 mur­ders; eight months in 2024, over 400 mur­ders). We've had al­most 4,500 mur­ders un­der this Gov­ern­ment!"

She said crime, crim­i­nal­i­ty and gang war­fare had now cre­at­ed a new type of tourism, where for­eign YouTube in­flu­encers come to "ex­ploit the suf­fer­ing of our crime sit­u­a­tion."

Man­i­festo plans

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the crime sit­u­a­tion is out of con­trol be­cause the crim­i­nal and civ­il jus­tice sys­tem was in a mess.

"We have to fix it via a sep­a­rate Jus­tice Min­istry," she said.

She said Part One of UNC's plans for the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem will do the fol­low­ing:

* Com­pre­hen­sive re­view of all crim­i­nal laws to weed out ob­so­lete ones that are op­pres­sive to a free de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety or cause un­nec­es­sary bu­reau­cra­cy.

* Cat­e­gorise the of­fences of mur­der and rape in­to first-de­gree and sec­ond-de­gree mur­der.

* In­tro­duce a con­sti­tu­tion­al right of an ac­cused to have a tri­al with­in a rea­son­able time. There may be in­no­cent peo­ple await­ing.

* Place vic­tims at the cen­tre of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem from the be­gin­ning: pro­vid­ing sup­port, in­clud­ing resti­tu­tion, job place­ments, hous­ing and so­cial pro­grammes. Due to cur­rent low de­tec­tion and con­vic­tion rate, sup­port will be giv­en re­gard­less of if some­one is caught/con­vict­ed.

* Con­sid­er in­tro­duc­ing mon­e­tary re­wards for po­lice of­fi­cers and di­vi­sions where crime is kept low and crime-fight­ing tar­gets are met to mo­ti­vate them.

* Pro­vide need­ed re­sources to en­sure that cas­es in­volv­ing of­fences against chil­dren and sex­u­al of­fences are de­ter­mined rapid­ly.

* Raise the le­gal age for mar­i­jua­na use and gam­bling to 25 years and old­er.

* In­crease the num­ber of func­tion­al court­rooms. Right now, there is a deficit. Each Judge of the High Court must have a des­ig­nat­ed court­room to en­sure they can sit every day.

* Pro­vide more court­rooms in high­ly pop­u­lat­ed ar­eas out­side the cap­i­tal - Ch­agua­nas, Rio Claro, San­gre Grande, Diego Mar­tin.

* In­crease crit­i­cal sup­port for the ju­di­cia­ry to en­sure back­log re­duc­tion and tri­al in­dictable cas­es with­in 2-3 years.

* Mod­ernise pris­ons and break up large pris­ons in­to small­er ones for bet­ter in­mate mon­i­tor­ing.

* Cre­ate small­er de­ten­tion cen­tres around T&T to break up gang ac­tiv­i­ty and en­sure clos­er fam­i­ly sup­port to pris­on­ers by en­abling reg­u­lar vis­i­ta­tion. En­sure that in­car­cer­at­ed per­sons are al­lowed fre­quent vis­i­ta­tion by their chil­dren.

* Es­tab­lish low­er se­cu­ri­ty pris­ons for first-time non-vi­o­lent of­fend­ers who can get day­time work re­lease.

* Im­ple­ment ap­pro­pri­ate so­cial pro­grammes in­volv­ing train­ing, life skills to pre­vent re­cidi­vism.

* Com­pre­hen­sive­ly re­form/re­ori­ent the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem to cater to all chil­dren, not just aca­d­e­m­i­cal­ly gift­ed ones, and par­tic­u­lar­ly, to iden­ti­fy young per­sons with learn­ing dis­abil­i­ties/ vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties so they can be guid­ed to pro­duc­tive ac­tiv­i­ties. Most crim­i­nals have not been suc­cess­ful in the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.

* En­cour­age par­tic­i­pa­tion of NGOs and ser­vice or­gan­i­sa­tions in men­tor­ing youth, vi­tal to pre­vent­ing them from falling un­der gang lead­ers' in­flu­ence.

* Sup­port sin­gle par­ents, in­clud­ing af­ter-school care, to en­sure chil­dren are su­per­vised. Na­tion­wide home­work cen­tres for rein­tro­duc­tion.

* Re­sources for the DPP's and Pub­lic De­fend­er's of­fices en­sur­ing bet­ter con­di­tions/salaries.

UNC's peo­ple-cen­tered poli­cies al­so in­clude:

* Plac­ing po­lice of­fi­cers to pa­trol in­side schools to pro­tect chil­dren

* Low­er tax­es, and be­ing against the in­tro­duc­tion of any new tax­es.

* Low­er fu­el prices, con­sid­er re­open­ing the Petrotrin re­fin­ery, no VAT on 7,000 food items.

* A work­ers' agen­da; re­open­ing GATE; free lap­tops for sec­ondary school chil­dren; tablets for pri­ma­ry school chil­dren.

* Ex­pand­ing Chil­dren's Life Fund to cov­er more ill­ness­es.

* Re­view the de­mer­it sys­tem and halt "op­pres­sive abu­sive tick­et­ing of mo­torists."

* Com­pre­hen­sive au­dit of HDC ap­pli­ca­tions - con­tact­ing and see­ing all who still need hous­ing, pri­ori­tis­ing those with long-stand­ing ap­pli­ca­tions; Land for the Land­less pol­i­cy.