An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Af­ter a spate of vi­o­lent crimes over the last cou­ple of days and mount­ing pub­lic pres­sure, Head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ad­mit­ted that the sta­tis­tics are not sat­is­fac­to­ry, but the coun­try re­mains fo­cused on get­ting bet­ter re­sults at every turn.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Dr Row­ley stat­ed the brazen­ness of the crim­i­nals is root­ed in a be­lief that they will not be ap­pre­hend­ed and even if ap­pre­hend­ed they have noth­ing to fear from the ju­di­cial sys­tem.

He ex­plained that the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty plans and ex­e­cutes strate­gies to pre­vent these truths from pre­vail­ing and that the crim­i­nals are wrong on both counts.

Last week, the coun­try was faced with a quadru­ple mur­der in St Au­gus­tine, the kid­nap­ping of an El So­cor­ro busi­ness­woman, and the killings of a preg­nant woman and teenag­er in Ari­ma. Yes­ter­day, there was a dou­ble mur­der in St Au­gus­tine while To­ba­go was rocked by an­oth­er killing.

The crime sit­u­a­tion has thrown com­mu­ni­ties in T&T in­to a tail­spin and crime ex­perts are call­ing for se­ri­ous ac­tion–an all-out war on crime and crim­i­nals and strength­en­ing of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus.

From De­cem­ber 1-30, the mur­der toll stood at 47, and for last year from De­cem­ber 1-29, the num­ber stood at 46.

Dr Row­ley said the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil meets fair­ly reg­u­lar­ly, takes cer­tain de­ci­sions, and has cer­tain op­er­a­tions in place.

The PM said de­mands are be­ing made on the po­lice and the wider se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices. He added, how­ev­er, that na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices are be­ing con­stant­ly re­sourced to keep them avail­able and ef­fec­tive.

Row­ley out­lined that on­ly re­cent­ly the Gov­ern­ment ap­proved the ad­di­tion, at re­quest, in emer­gency mode, of 50 new ve­hi­cles to the pa­trol fleet of the Po­lice Ser­vice and the De­fence Force.

He fur­ther called on cit­i­zens to pro­vide in­for­ma­tion to the po­lice on crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

“We are con­tin­u­ous­ly en­gaged in de­tect­ing and man­ag­ing the mil­lions of rounds of am­mu­ni­tion and the thou­sands of firearms that are cir­cu­lat­ing with­in the coun­try. To this end, we ap­peal to the pub­lic to as­sist in this fight, to elim­i­nate these fre­quent out­rages and gun crimes, in gen­er­al, by pro­vid­ing as much in­for­ma­tion as you can, so that the se­cu­ri­ty ser­vice per­son­nel can get ahead of the crim­i­nals be­fore they cal­lous­ly add to the death and de­struc­tion that a hand­ful of cit­i­zens wreak up­on the vast ma­jor­i­ty of the pop­u­la­tion.

“If you know some­thing, un­der­take to say some­thing. The pro­tec­tive ser­vices will con­tin­ue to go af­ter the weapons and their han­dlers but their jobs can be great­ly en­hanced by in­creased in­for­ma­tion streams from the sphere of pub­lic spirit­ed­ness.”

The Prime Min­is­ter added that the pro­tec­tion of so­ci­ety is a 24-hour sev­en-days-a-week ex­er­cise which will re­main the du­ty and fo­cus of the State as the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to con­front all those who choose vi­o­lent crime as their con­tri­bu­tion to the na­tion’s chal­lenges.

In Oc­to­ber, Row­ley met with mem­bers of his Gov­ern­ment and the heads of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and T&T De­fence Force.

Row­ley had a sim­i­lar meet­ing on Ju­ly 16, where he met act­ing Chief of De­fence Staff Brig Gen Dex­ter Fran­cis, the di­rec­tor of the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency, and the ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers of the TTPS.

Crime ex­perts re­spond

‘All-out war on crime need­ed’

Guardian Me­dia spoke to sev­er­al crim­i­nal ex­perts who said the Prime Min­is­ter should have de­clared an all-out war on crime.

Weigh­ing in on the is­sue, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dau­rius Figueira, not­ing the fail­ure of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus, said the Prime Min­is­ter’s con­tin­ued re­liance on cit­i­zens’ in­volve­ment as a crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy may not be ef­fec­tive.

“The thing that struck me is that the state­ment is bipo­lar and I say the Prime Min­is­ter is un­der in­creas­ing pres­sure from the po­lit­i­cal par­ty fi­nanciers, be­cause you know we have an elec­tion com­ing up,” he point­ed out.

How­ev­er, Figueira be­lieves the Gov­ern­ment must strength­en sus­tain­able sys­tems to im­prove se­cu­ri­ty.

“If you have in­sti­tu­tions of state that are not fit for pur­pose, how can we work with the po­lice to solve the prob­lem? All the il­lic­it weapons en­ter­ing the coun­try is not our do­ing, it’s the fail­ure of Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion, the fail­ure of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus that is where the prob­lems lie, and you must recog­nise that.”

‘Strate­gic plan­ning crit­i­cal’

Re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Garvin Heer­ah said an all-out war on crime was need­ed, in­cor­po­rat­ing strate­gic plan­ning, com­mu­ni­ty en­gage­ment, and tar­get­ed op­er­a­tions. He said it was es­sen­tial as the fu­ture of the na­tion de­pends on a unit­ed ef­fort to re­claim its rep­u­ta­tion as a safe and vi­brant des­ti­na­tion.

Heer­ah not­ed that iden­ti­fy­ing and pri­ori­tis­ing spe­cif­ic tar­gets is para­mount in dis­man­tling crim­i­nal net­works.

“A fo­cus on un­der­stand­ing the dy­nam­ics of gangs, dis­rupt­ing their ac­tiv­i­ties, and seiz­ing their fi­nan­cial re­sources is es­sen­tial. Set­ting achiev­able goals with­in a de­fined time­line will en­able a more ef­fec­tive and mea­sur­able re­sponse to the pre­vail­ing crime cri­sis.”

Heer­ah said ac­knowl­edg­ing the strain on man­pow­er re­sources and low morale with­in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies was cru­cial.

He said it re­quires a holis­tic ap­proach, in­clud­ing the al­lo­ca­tion of ad­e­quate re­sources and the im­ple­men­ta­tion of sup­port­ive mea­sures.

“The spi­ralling crime sit­u­a­tion has struck pan­ic and fear in­to the hearts of the cit­i­zen­ry. We have to act fast and bring this sit­u­a­tion un­der con­trol or we will sink in­to an abyss of fur­ther de­spair,” he added.

‘Lack of de­ter­rent ef­fect’

Mean­while, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad in­di­cat­ed that the way crim­i­nals are be­com­ing more and more brazen, two fac­tors come to mind very read­i­ly.

“One has to do with the lack of de­ter­rent ef­fect of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. And this stems from the low de­tec­tion rates. And the mes­sage that it sends to would-be of­fend­ers is that there is a very, very low to neg­li­gi­ble like­li­hood that they would be caught. And if you feel that you’re not go­ing to be caught, then the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem isn’t go­ing to de­ter you from com­mit­ting crimes,” Seep­er­sad dis­closed.

‘Row­ley’s state­ment shows an ad­mit­tance of fail­ure’

Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) Gary Grif­fith said Row­ley’s state­ment shows an ad­mit­tance of fail­ure and the in­abil­i­ty to deal with crime.

“It al­so ex­pos­es why he has been in­ef­fec­tive in ad­dress­ing the scourge of crime. Lack­ing any form or struc­ture, any plans or poli­cies, he is once again ask­ing the pub­lic for help in fight­ing crime,” he said.

The for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er said this was in line with the PM’s style of gov­er­nance since he has now “laid the ground­work to blame cit­i­zens for his gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to deal with crime be­cause cit­i­zens are not do­ing what he asks.”

Grif­fith said when he was po­lice com­mis­sion­er, he put sys­tems in place to peg back crim­i­nals and that is what is re­quired.

He said sad­ly this is not be­ing adopt­ed by the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment.

‘PM’s state­ment vague’

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ Shad­ow Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Oropouche MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said that the PM’s state­ment was point­less, ob­scured, and vague, typ­i­cal­ly with­out a plan of ac­tion to tame the de­te­ri­o­rat­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty cir­cum­stances.

“There is an even more crit­i­cal need for high-tech mon­i­tor­ing of un­marked po­lice ve­hi­cles out­fit­ted with blue lights and sirens. Stiff penal­ties should be im­posed for fail­ure to ac­count for the where­abouts of those ve­hi­cles and any unau­tho­rised in­stal­la­tion of these se­cu­ri­ty de­vices on any ve­hi­cle,” Mooni­lal sug­gest­ed.

‘Act de­ci­sive­ly’

Op­po­si­tion MP for Ch­agua­nas West Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly said the PM’s state­ment that the best gift a shoot­er can re­ceive is the si­lence about their iden­ti­ty shame­ful­ly places blame on the cit­i­zens of T&T, im­ply­ing a fail­ure to do the work of his own Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

“I urge the Prime Min­is­ter to rise from his com­pla­cen­cy and act de­ci­sive­ly to ad­dress this dire sit­u­a­tion. Sea­son­al greet­ings are in­suf­fi­cient; what we re­quire is a com­pre­hen­sive plan, im­me­di­ate ac­tion, and a clear com­mit­ment to the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of our cit­i­zens,” Ram­bal­ly stressed.

Cit­i­zens con­cerned

Re­spond­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ment which was al­so post­ed on Face­book, cit­i­zens ex­pressed fear and con­cern.

One user said “Words aren’t ENOUGH, Prime Min­is­ter we need AC­TION. Too many of­fi­cers are sit­ting in sta­tions. Our taxed dol­lars are pay­ing them to work not to be re­laxed as though they are home.”

An­oth­er said, “Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley you can’t be se­ri­ous­ly ask­ing peo­ple to give in­for­ma­tion about the gang­sters and their op­er­a­tion in this coun­try, first­ly I must be giv­en a Firearm Users Li­cence (FUL) to be able to light them up and af­ter that, we will con­tin­ue from there, but for now I see noth­ing, I hear noth­ing and I know noth­ing.”

A Face­book user added, “Make haste the crim­i­nal el­e­ment is cross­ing over too many in­no­cent peo­ple are dy­ing. Long time ago we could have said most crimes are gang-re­lat­ed. Now too many in­no­cent peo­ple who are just go­ing about their lives are tar­get­ed just be­cause they live in an area that calls on cer­tain num­bers to re­vise the firearms laws and give us cit­i­zens le­gal pro­tec­tion with train­ing in our hands to pro­tect our­selves and our loved ones.”