Chester Sam­bra­no

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day laid out a de­tailed an­ti-crime strat­e­gy cen­tred on in­sti­tu­tion­al re­form, en­hanced po­lice ca­pa­bil­i­ties, and in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven op­er­a­tions, while de­clar­ing that State-fund­ed pro­grammes like the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) and the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP) must no longer be used to bankroll crim­i­nal gangs.

Pre­sent­ing the plan in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the ini­tia­tive, de­vel­oped by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro and re­viewed by Cab­i­net, rep­re­sents a de­ci­sive shift in how T&T ap­proach­es crime pre­ven­tion and en­force­ment.

“One of the ma­jor steps in any an­ti-crime strat­e­gy must be to stop State-fund­ed pro­grammes from be­com­ing pipelines to crim­i­nal en­ter­prise,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

“In ad­di­tion to the ghosts in CEPEP, you have the ghosts in URP. These pro­grammes were cre­at­ed to help peo­ple, not to help fund gangs and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty. We are de­ter­mined to stop that leak­age. We are cut­ting off the flow of pub­lic funds to crim­i­nal net­works.”

Among the most sig­nif­i­cant struc­tur­al re­forms, Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced plans to place the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre (NOC) un­der the com­mand of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS). She de­scribed the cur­rent arrange­ment, in which the NOC is manned by of­fi­cers of the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA), as in­ef­fec­tive.

“This is what I dis­cov­ered, the NOC is now manned by SSA of­fi­cers, and they just sit and look at the screens. They don’t have a cadre of troops that they can de­ploy to go out and deal with some­thing they pick up on those screens,” she said.

The NOC was orig­i­nal­ly es­tab­lished un­der her pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion to serve as a com­mand hub for re­al-time se­cu­ri­ty op­er­a­tions. How­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said it had since be­come a pas­sive mon­i­tor­ing cen­tre.

“You have all these nice big screens in the NOC. You can see the whole coun­try through the cam­eras that are work­ing, but if you can­not re­spond, if you can­not de­ploy, then the NOC be­comes just an­oth­er room. That’s not what it was built for.”

She said trans­fer­ring op­er­a­tional con­trol to the TTPS would al­low the cen­tre to func­tion as in­tend­ed, a live com­mand post ca­pa­ble of di­rect­ing re­al-time re­spons­es to crime scenes, threats, or emer­gen­cies.

“This will hap­pen very short­ly. The po­lice must be able to act the mo­ment in­tel­li­gence is re­ceived. That’s what the NOC was de­signed for, and that’s what we will re­store it to do.” The Prime Min­is­ter al­so raised alarms about the coun­try’s sur­veil­lance ca­pac­i­ty, point­ing to wide­spread dys­func­tion in the na­tion­al CCTV net­work.

“Many of the cam­eras are not work­ing. And even when they are work­ing, they can’t read num­ber plates. They are out­dat­ed, in­ef­fec­tive and in ur­gent need of re­place­ment or up­grade,” she said.

She re­mind­ed the House that Op­po­si­tion MPs had pre­vi­ous­ly ques­tioned the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty about the sta­tus of the CCTV net­work.

“At one point, we were told the cam­eras had been or­dered. Then we were told they hadn’t. Then it was two years of wait­ing. These cam­eras be­came like ghosts too. Ghost gangs and ghost cam­eras.”

As part of the wider crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Gov­ern­ment was mov­ing for­ward with the pro­cure­ment and de­ploy­ment of mo­bile Conex polic­ing units. These mod­u­lar, con­tain­er-style units can be rapid­ly de­ployed across the coun­try and are de­signed to op­er­ate as com­pact po­lice posts, staffed by TTPS of­fi­cers.

“They are stack­able, mo­bile, and can be placed strate­gi­cal­ly in high-traf­fic or high-crime ar­eas. We can put them in busi­ness dis­tricts, trans­port hubs, or com­mu­ni­ties where we need more pres­ence,” she ex­plained.

“These Conex units will be manned by TTPS of­fi­cers, not just for vis­i­bil­i­ty but for im­me­di­ate en­gage­ment with the pub­lic. They al­low for quick scal­ing up of op­er­a­tions in any re­gion.”

The broad­er crime plan in­cludes:

A full in­ter­nal au­dit of the TTPS

Lead­er­ship de­vel­op­ment and crime trend eval­u­a­tion across di­vi­sions

Restora­tion of com­mu­ni­ty com­fort pa­trols

Rapid re­sponse teams fo­cused on gang ac­tiv­i­ty and gun vi­o­lence

Ex­pan­sion of foren­sic tools and sur­veil­lance ca­pa­bil­i­ties

Cy­ber­crime readi­ness and strate­gic in­tel­li­gence in­te­gra­tion

Bud­get and over­time op­ti­mi­sa­tion

Man­pow­er ex­pan­sion through SRP and aux­il­iary fire of­fi­cer ab­sorp­tion

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the strat­e­gy was al­ready in mo­tion, and the com­ing na­tion­al bud­get would re­flect Gov­ern­ment’s pri­or­i­ties in re­sourc­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies.

She added that a leg­isla­tive agen­da was be­ing pre­pared to sup­port the strat­e­gy, with pro­pos­als in­clud­ing:

Re­form of the wit­ness pro­tec­tion pro­gramme

Stronger penal­ties for home in­va­sions

Stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion

Ju­di­cial process stream­lin­ing

Elec­tron­ic mon­i­tor­ing of high-risk of­fend­ers

“This plan builds a polic­ing frame­work that is proac­tive, ac­count­able and mod­ern,” she said.

“It’s not just about force, it’s about strat­e­gy, fore­sight, and pro­tect­ing the pub­lic.”

To law en­force­ment, she is­sued a point­ed call: “Pow­er with­out dis­ci­pline is abuse. Dis­ci­pline with­out pow­er is paral­y­sis. Ex­er­cise both, with­in the law, un­der scruti­ny, and with re­spect.”

And to cit­i­zens, she ap­pealed: “If you see some­thing, say some­thing. One tip can stop a kid­nap­ping. One cam­era can stop a crime. But the sys­tem must be re­sourced and ready to act.”