KE­JAN HAYNES

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has an­nounced that 30 joint army-po­lice posts will be es­tab­lished across Trinidad and To­ba­go over the next four months, as the Gov­ern­ment moves to ex­pand its se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures un­der the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE).

In a Face­book post yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the ini­tia­tive is in­tend­ed to re­spond to years of re­quests from com­mu­ni­ties for a greater se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence.

She said the joint army-po­lice posts would pro­vide “a sense of com­fort” and help com­mu­ni­ties re­gain the use of their pub­lic spaces.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so called on NGOs, busi­ness cham­bers, com­mu­ni­ty groups and lo­cal gov­ern­ment coun­cils to adopt and sup­port the posts and work along­side the se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices.

The pro­posed lo­ca­tions in­clude the Tarou­ba Fly­over; Grand Bazaar In­ter­change; Cou­va In­ter­change; Williamsville Junc­tion, Guayagua­yare; the junc­tion of Rochard Road and Pe­nal Rock Road; the La Ro­main in­ter­sec­tion of the South­ern Main Road and South Trunk Road; Todd’s Road; Tamana Road; Kel­ly Vil­lage; De­mer­ara Road, Aranguez; Ed­die Hart Grounds; Carlsen Field; Fe­lic­i­ty; La­dy Young Road; Acono Road; Mal­gretoute Junc­tion; Gol­con­da In­ter­change and Tor­rib Road in Tabaquite.

Six ad­di­tion­al sites are still to be de­ter­mined, the PM re­vealed.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar thanked Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency Di­rec­tor Ali­cia Hen­ry, Chief of De­fence Staff Com­modore Don Po­lo, act­ing Prison Com­mis­sion­er Elvin Scant­er­bury and mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices for their work dur­ing the on­go­ing SoE, say­ing the Gov­ern­ment re­mained con­fi­dent in their shared vi­sion of “end­ing the grip of crime on our na­tion.”

Ac­cord­ing to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice’s lat­est crime sta­tis­tics cir­cu­lat­ed yes­ter­day, the mur­der toll stood at 222, com­pared with 232 at the same point last year. The sta­tis­tics al­so showed no mur­ders were record­ed in Ju­ly 2026, com­pared with three in Ju­ly 2025.

How­ev­er, in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, for­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter and for­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice Gary Grif­fith crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment’s plan, call­ing the move out­dat­ed and in­ef­fec­tive.

“The Prime Min­is­ter’s an­nounce­ment of 30 po­lice posts is not a mod­ern crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy. It is an out­dat­ed, cos­met­ic mea­sure that may cre­ate the ap­pear­ance of ac­tion but will do lit­tle to de­ter crim­i­nals, re­duce crime or im­prove the po­lice re­sponse to cit­i­zens in dis­tress,” Grif­fith said in a state­ment.

“This is what hap­pens when a Prime Min­is­ter is guid­ed on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty by per­sons with­out the nec­es­sary op­er­a­tional ex­pe­ri­ence or se­nior law-en­force­ment lead­er­ship. Es­tab­lish­ing more po­lice posts re­flects a 1970s ap­proach to polic­ing, not the in­tel­li­gence-led, mo­bile and tech­nol­o­gy-dri­ven sys­tem re­quired to con­front present-day crim­i­nal­i­ty.

“A build­ing does not pre­vent crime. Per­sons have been mur­dered im­me­di­ate­ly out­side ful­ly staffed po­lice sta­tions. The mere pres­ence of of­fi­cers sit­ting in­side a po­lice post will not de­ter crim­i­nals op­er­at­ing else­where, nor will it pro­vide the rapid re­sponse re­quired when a cit­i­zen is un­der at­tack.”

He said staffing is­sues will al­so af­fect the plan.

“The more of­fi­cers as­signed to sta­t­ic lo­ca­tions, the few­er of­fi­cers are avail­able for mo­bile pa­trols, high-vis­i­bil­i­ty op­er­a­tions and im­me­di­ate re­spons­es to emer­gency calls. Crim­i­nals will sim­ply op­er­ate be­yond the lim­it­ed reach of these posts, know­ing that the of­fi­cers in­side can­not re­spond quick­ly enough.

“It is com­pa­ra­ble to an old-fash­ioned crick­et cap­tain set­ting a field for bad bowl­ing: when­ev­er some­thing hap­pens in a par­tic­u­lar lo­ca­tion, an­oth­er field­er is placed there. But crime is not sta­t­ic. Crim­i­nals adapt, move and ex­ploit the spaces where law en­force­ment is ab­sent. Ef­fec­tive polic­ing must there­fore be mo­bile, re­spon­sive and un­pre­dictable.”

Not­ing once again that the New York City Po­lice De­part­ment se­cures a pop­u­la­tion of more than eight mil­lion peo­ple with few­er po­lice sta­tions and posts than T&T has for its pop­u­la­tion of just 1.4 mil­lion, Grif­fith said, “What Trinidad and To­ba­go re­quires is a prop­er­ly func­tion­ing 999 sys­tem linked di­rect­ly to op­er­a­tional ve­hi­cles de­ployed through­out de­fined ar­eas of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. Every po­lice ve­hi­cle should be GPS-tracked, with dis­patch­ers able to iden­ti­fy and send the near­est avail­able unit im­me­di­ate­ly. Cit­i­zens call­ing 999 should nev­er be placed on hold, told that no one is avail­able or forced to tele­phone in­di­vid­ual po­lice sta­tions in search of as­sis­tance. ... That is what gives the pub­lic con­fi­dence: know­ing that when they call for help, a prop­er­ly equipped po­lice unit will ar­rive quick­ly.”

Not­ing that the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress was the sec­ond con­sec­u­tive ad­min­is­tra­tion to mis­un­der­stand the dis­tinc­tion be­tween a po­lice build­ing and an ef­fec­tive po­lice re­sponse, Grif­fith said, “Re­fur­bish­ing nec­es­sary sta­tions is one thing. Es­tab­lish­ing 30 po­lice posts and pre­sent­ing them as a ma­jor crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tive is some­thing en­tire­ly dif­fer­ent.

The Gov­ern­ment should in­vest in a re­li­able 999 com­mand-and-con­trol sys­tem, prop­er­ly re­sourced mo­bile pa­trols, GPS-mon­i­tored ve­hi­cles, in­tel­li­gence-led de­ploy­ment, high vis­i­bil­i­ty and re­sponse times of un­der five min­utes. Those are the mea­sures that de­ter crim­i­nals, re­as­sure com­mu­ni­ties and al­low the po­lice to in­ter­vene while crimes are oc­cur­ring.

“Thir­ty po­lice posts may pro­vide 30 lo­ca­tions for press con­fer­ences and rib­bon-cut­ting cer­e­monies. They will not pro­vide the mod­ern, mo­bile and re­spon­sive Po­lice Ser­vice that Trinidad and To­ba­go ur­gent­ly needs.”