With 13 of the 54 women mur­dered in 2023 be­cause of gang vi­o­lence, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad says it was not sur­pris­ing as there has been an in­crease in women and girls join­ing crim­i­nal gangs.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia last Fri­day, Seep­er­sad said gang in­tel­li­gence da­ta showed women and girls play­ing ad­vi­so­ry roles in the gangs. He said in­for­ma­tion sug­gest­ed that T&T can soon have fe­male-dom­i­nat­ed or pre­dom­i­nant gangs, which al­ready ex­ist in oth­er Caribbean coun­tries. 

The coun­try lost 57 women to mur­der in 2022, with 15 the re­sult of Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence (DV).

Now 2023 da­ta from the Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS) Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis Branch showed that gang-re­lat­ed mur­ders of women were al­most equal to those who died from DV. There were al­so eight re­venge mur­ders, five in­volv­ing al­ter­ca­tions, four drug-re­lat­ed, three as­so­ci­at­ed with rob­beries, sev­en un­known and one undis­closed. There were 14 women mur­dered be­tween ages 31-40, 10 be­tween 41-50 and nine be­tween 21-30. Mur­der­ers took the lives of five teenagers, a six-year-old girl and five women over 60. Up un­til last month, po­lice were still in­ves­ti­gat­ing 36.

“What we are see­ing in adult gangs is that women are play­ing a more sig­nif­i­cant role, where­as they would have played a very pe­riph­er­al role in the past. Now, you are see­ing women com­ing up as ad­vi­sors, women be­ing used in tran­ship­ping drugs and hid­ing weapons, but play­ing a more ad­vi­so­ry or se­nior ca­pac­i­ty in gangs,” Seep­er­sad said. He not­ed that past da­ta in­di­cat­ed most fe­male mur­ders were DV-re­lat­ed, while gang vi­o­lence most­ly af­fect­ed males. He said da­ta col­lect­ed from Caribbean schools in 2016/2017 and 2023/2024 showed a dis­turb­ing trend among Form Four and Form Five stu­dents who re­spond­ed to ques­tions in a US­AID study on whether they were mem­bers of a gang. It showed an in­crease in the per­cent­age of youth self-re­port­ing as gang mem­bers.

“We are al­so see­ing the fe­male stu­dents in school self-re­port­ing that they are in gangs, much high­er than we would have an­tic­i­pat­ed at all. In fact, in some coun­tries in the re­gion, they are al­most run­ning neck to neck with the males.”

The crim­i­nol­o­gist said if stu­dents are in gangs, there is a high chance they are not per­form­ing well in school and will con­tin­ue the gang life af­ter school.

More de­ci­sive ac­tion on Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence

With 13 Do­mes­tic Vionce deaths in 2023, Seep­er­sad said there are a lot of dri­vers, such as eco­nom­ic de­pen­den­cy and drug use. How­ev­er, ed­u­cat­ing the pub­lic about DV is nec­es­sary, as peo­ple some­times have lim­it­ed prob­lem-solv­ing scope and of­ten see it as a way in which things must be done.

“One of the things that need to hap­pen as well is that law en­force­ment needs to play a greater role when it comes to do­mes­tic vi­o­lence. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, one of the things we see in the Caribbean re­gion is that, cul­tur­al­ly, we shy away from want­i­ng to deal with it. We al­so know peo­ple in­volved in re­la­tion­ships and do­mes­tic vi­o­lence is hap­pen­ing, and we say, ‘You know, that is hus­band and wife busi­ness. I do not want to get in­volved,’ and we do noth­ing.” Seep­er­sad said the po­lice, as part of so­ci­ety, pos­sess the same cul­tur­al norms, so de­spite do­mes­tic vi­o­lence be­ing il­le­gal, of­fi­cers are typ­i­cal­ly re­luc­tant to take ac­tion. Be­cause there are few con­se­quences for en­gag­ing in DV, he said some peo­ple do it with im­puni­ty.

WINAD: Armed vi­o­lence a spillover of DV

Ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of Women’s In­sti­tute for Al­ter­na­tive De­vel­op­ment, Fo­lade Mu­to­ta, said peo­ple must come to terms with the ex­tent of how vi­o­lence in the pri­vate space fu­els those in the pub­lic. Mu­to­ta said DV was about pow­er and con­trol, so one part­ner com­mits a crime be­cause he be­lieves he has a right.

Mu­to­ta said armed vi­o­lence was al­so about pow­er and con­trol. Whether it is law en­force­ment of­fi­cers, drug barons, pas­tors, or politi­cians, she said once a per­son has a gun, it in­creas­es their con­cept of pow­er. She said it was not by chance that so many peo­ple ap­ply for Firearm User Li­cences (FUL). Not on­ly that, but she said FUL hold­ers were even threat­en­ing women in their homes, some even putting firearms un­der their pil­low.

“Do­mes­tic Vi­o­lence and armed vi­o­lence are cut from the same cloth. It is about pow­er and con­trol. Un­less we deal with the lev­el of vi­o­lence ex­pe­ri­enced in the home and fam­i­lies, whether it is child sex­u­al abuse, el­der abuse, or vi­o­lence against women. It is go­ing to be tricky for us to put a han­dle on the armed vi­o­lence in the streets. It is a spillover,” Mu­to­ta said.

She wel­comed the TTPS sta­tis­tics but said it needs more spe­cif­ic da­ta.