Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land did not make any ex­cus­es for him­self or the TTPS as he ex­pressed dis­sat­is­fac­tion over T&T’s mur­der count, which as of Christ­mas morn­ing was 610.  In fact he said both he and all po­lice of­fi­cers need­ed to work hard­er to ad­dress the crime sit­u­a­tion.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia at a meal dis­tri­b­u­tion cer­e­mo­ny for the home­less at the George Street Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre on Christ­mas Day, Scot­land, who has served as Min­is­ter in the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry since Ju­ly said de­spite his rel­a­tive­ly short tenure thus far, he still feels he could have con­tributed more. 

“I think that I can do bet­ter. Six months in this sit­u­a­tion giv­en the task, it is not an ex­cuse I wish to avail my­self of. I want to see bet­ter re­sults.   

“I will not give my­self a fail­ing grade but I would not give my­self a great pass­ing grade ei­ther,” Scot­land said.

On­ly on Tues­day, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher ad­mit­ted to be­ing dis­ap­point­ed that mur­ders reached a new record mark.

She made the com­ment in a state­ment late Mon­day night. She said the killings had erod­ed “a sig­nif­i­cant­ly large amount of good work” done by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Scot­land, who was ap­point­ed in Ju­ly, to as­sist Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds by plac­ing added fo­cus on the po­lice ser­vice. 

Scot­land said while he would con­tin­ue to push him­self to work hard­er, he al­so ex­pect­ed the TTPS to push its of­fi­cers to pro­duce more tan­gi­ble crime­fight­ing re­sults. 

“My ad­vice (for the po­lice) would be to work hard­er and I take my own ad­vice al­so. 

‘The plans are there, I think we need a more ro­bust im­ple­men­ta­tion of the plan,” he said.

In Jan­u­ary, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Hare­wood-Christo­pher ap­peared be­fore a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee where she ad­mit­ted that none of the crime­fight­ing ob­jec­tives set by po­lice had been achieved. 

A po­lice Comp­stat re­port on De­cem­ber 9, al­so showed that none of the nine per­for­mance tar­gets were met for crime sup­pres­sion. 

Com­ment­ing on this, Scot­land said while more could al­so be done by the po­lice, the pub­lic al­so had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to work with the au­thor­i­ties in fight­ing crime.  

“I take this op­por­tu­ni­ty, on this day, to ap­peal to the pub­lic to work with us. We must not hit those lev­els in 2025 that were hit this year, but we can on­ly do it with your sup­port.” 

Scot­land said based on his own in­ter­ac­tions with the pub­lic, sev­er­al cit­i­zens were hes­i­tant to re­port crime to the po­lice for fear of be­ing tar­get­ed by crim­i­nals. 

He said one of the key ob­jec­tives for his min­istry go­ing for­ward would be to en­hance the pub­lic’s sup­port and con­fi­dence in the TTPS. 

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day, crim­i­nol­o­gist Dau­rius Figuera said he felt that politi­cians were fail­ing in their ap­proach to crime-fight­ing as it would come at a high “po­lit­i­cal price.” 

How­ev­er, Scot­land dis­missed this, not­ing that the Gov­ern­ment through the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty con­tin­ued to pri­ori­tise is­sues of safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty. 

“Min­is­ter Hinds and I have been work­ing tire­less­ly try­ing to come up with plans, be­cause we can­not tell oth­ers how to do their job, there’s a cer­tain line. 

“The crim­i­nol­o­gists will be crim­i­nol­o­gists, they will speak... I don’t know what ba­sis or the­o­ry they made that com­ment, but I re­buke it to­tal­ly.” 

Asked what he thought of the per­for­mance of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher for the year, Scot­land de­clined to com­ment on the mat­ter and re­ferred to the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC).

How­ev­er, he said there is a need for some re­form to take place.

Mooni­lal laments

‘lack of re­sults’

In a me­dia re­lease, Op­po­si­tion MP and shad­ow min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Dr Roodal Mooni­lal was crit­i­cal of the Gov­ern­ment’s per­for­mance and lament­ed what he de­scribed as a lack of re­sults from Scot­land’s tenure. 

“Mr Scot­land can take no plea­sure in his work that not made even a mar­gin­al dent in the crime fig­ures. 

“Re­gret­tably this dis­as­ter is big­ger than Mr Scot­land—it is a whole of Gov­ern­ment fail­ure.” 

Mooni­lal was al­so crit­i­cal of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds and the Prime Min­is­ter, whom he de­scribed as be­ing in­ef­fec­tive in ad­dress­ing vi­o­lent crime.