RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter 

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt  

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has an­nounced that a Caribbean-wide gangs data­base will soon be im­ple­ment­ed, along with the Cari­com Ar­rest War­rant Bill aimed at en­sur­ing there are no safe har­bours for crim­i­nals in any part of the re­gion. 

Speak­ing at the sec­ond re­gion­al sym­po­sium on Vi­o­lence as a Pub­lic Health Is­sue, Dr Row­ley said these ini­tia­tives are part of on­go­ing ef­forts to en­hance re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty and law en­force­ment col­lab­o­ra­tion. “The Caribbean Gang Data­base will be a key re­source for law en­force­ment,” Dr. Row­ley said. “In­for­ma­tion is strength. By iden­ti­fy­ing and shar­ing in­tel­li­gence on known bad ac­tors, law en­force­ment across the re­gion can work more ef­fec­tive­ly.”

He al­so high­light­ed the sig­nif­i­cance of the Cari­com Ar­rest War­rant Bill, which aims to stan­dard­ize ex­tra­di­tion process­es across mem­ber states. “Crim­i­nals must un­der­stand that in every Cari­com ter­ri­to­ry, the law ap­plies equal­ly to them as it re­lates to war­rants in an­tic­i­pa­tion of pros­e­cu­tion. There are no safe har­bours in any Caribbean ter­ri­to­ry. We want this leg­is­lat­ed,”

Dr Row­ley said. Dr Row­ley em­pha­sized the role of re­gion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion in ad­dress­ing crime, not­ing that tools like the Ad­vance Pas­sen­ger In­for­ma­tion (API) and Pas­sen­ger Records Bill will en­hance law en­force­ment ca­pa­bil­i­ties. “These tools will fa­cil­i­tate law en­force­ment ef­forts and en­able au­thor­i­ties to ap­pre­hend crim­i­nals more ef­fec­tive­ly,” he said. He stressed the im­por­tance of tack­ling crit­i­cal is­sues such as cor­rup­tion, il­lic­it fi­nance, and firearm traf­fick­ing. “Re­search must guide pol­i­cy­mak­ing, and the path­way to ef­fec­tive poli­cies should ad­dress these gaps to en­sure ro­bust sys­tems across the re­gion,” he added.

Dr Row­ley al­so called for com­pre­hen­sive so­lu­tions to crime and said youth en­gage­ment is cru­cial. “We have the knowl­edge and part­ner­ships to dri­ve mean­ing­ful change.

By work­ing with youth, we can forge a Caribbean de­fined by peace, op­por­tu­ni­ty, and proac­tive polic­ing,” he said. The sym­po­sium brings to­geth­er re­gion­al lead­ers, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, and law en­force­ment of­fi­cials to de­vel­op strate­gies for ad­dress­ing crime and its im­pact on Caribbean so­ci­eties.