Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad is warn­ing of a po­ten­tial­ly dan­ger­ous omis­sion in the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act, say­ing the leg­is­la­tion does not ex­press­ly ex­empt am­bu­lances and emer­gency med­ical per­son­nel from re­stric­tions im­posed on com­mu­ni­ties de­clared closed ar­eas.

His con­cern comes as the Mal­oney Build­ings Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment be­comes the first com­mu­ni­ty sub­ject­ed to the leg­is­la­tion, with res­i­dents placed un­der a night­ly cur­few from 9 pm to 5 am.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Seep­er­sad said his ex­am­i­na­tion of the leg­is­la­tion re­vealed un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing how med­ical emer­gen­cies would be han­dled dur­ing such op­er­a­tions.

“Sup­pose some­body has a heart at­tack in a com­mu­ni­ty which is un­der lock­down, and they have that heart at­tack in the mid­dle of the night dur­ing the lock­down pe­ri­od, what hap­pens? Do you write to the po­lice and wait on a per­mit while a per­son is hav­ing a heart at­tack?” he ques­tioned.

Seep­er­sad said while the leg­is­la­tion iden­ti­fies cer­tain ex­empt­ed per­son­nel, in­clud­ing mem­bers of the po­lice ser­vice and De­fence Force, emer­gency med­ical work­ers are not specif­i­cal­ly in­clud­ed.

He ac­knowl­edged that the Act con­tains broad­er pro­vi­sions al­low­ing move­ment in cer­tain cir­cum­stances but ar­gued that these do not clear­ly ad­dress med­ical emer­gen­cies.

He is there­fore rec­om­mend­ing ei­ther a leg­isla­tive amend­ment or a blan­ket au­tho­ri­sa­tion from the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to en­sure emer­gency med­ical per­son­nel can en­ter and leave closed com­mu­ni­ties with­out un­nec­es­sary re­stric­tions.

Mal­oney mur­der rate al­most twice na­tion­al av­er­age

How­ev­er, de­spite iden­ti­fy­ing short­com­ings in the leg­is­la­tion, Seep­er­sad be­lieves there is a rea­son­able ba­sis for se­lect­ing Mal­oney for spe­cial op­er­a­tions, point­ing to his­tor­i­cal mur­der sta­tis­tics show­ing that the com­mu­ni­ty’s mur­der rate was al­most twice the na­tion­al av­er­age.

He said an analy­sis he con­duct­ed us­ing na­tion­al mur­der da­ta be­tween 2018 and 2022 found that Mal­oney record­ed an av­er­age an­nu­al mur­der rate of 74 per 100,000 peo­ple, com­pared with the na­tion­al av­er­age of 36.7 dur­ing the same pe­ri­od.

Ac­cord­ing to his cal­cu­la­tions, Mal­oney ranked 62nd among com­mu­ni­ties na­tion­al­ly, plac­ing it with­in ap­prox­i­mate­ly the top 12 per cent for mur­der rates.

“Mal­oney had a mur­der rate which is al­most twice the na­tion­al mur­der rate,” he ex­plained.

How­ev­er, he stressed that the sta­tis­tics cov­ered Mal­oney as a whole, where­as the area cur­rent­ly un­der re­stric­tions rep­re­sents on­ly a small­er sec­tion of the com­mu­ni­ty.

Seep­er­sad al­so cau­tioned that high mur­der rates alone should not de­ter­mine which com­mu­ni­ties are placed un­der spe­cial op­er­a­tions.

He ex­plained that au­thor­i­ties must con­sid­er whether re­cent crim­i­nal in­ci­dents or in­tel­li­gence sug­gest a like­li­hood of fur­ther vi­o­lence, par­tic­u­lar­ly re­tal­ia­to­ry gang at­tacks.

“If the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act is de­ployed prop­er­ly, then mean­ing it’s da­ta-dri­ven, it’s in­tel­li­gence-dri­ven, and it’s fo­cused es­pe­cial­ly on vi­o­lence that is like­ly to re­sult in fur­ther vi­o­lence, then it is in fact more than like­ly go­ing to have a sup­pres­sive ef­fect on crime,” he said.

Crime sup­pres­sion alone not enough

But while Seep­er­sad be­lieves the leg­is­la­tion could de­liv­er im­me­di­ate re­sults, he is ques­tion­ing its abil­i­ty to pro­duce sus­tain­able re­duc­tions in crime with­out ac­com­pa­ny­ing so­cial in­ter­ven­tions.

He ar­gued that the Act fo­cus­es heav­i­ly on law en­force­ment sup­pres­sion while fail­ing to ad­dress the un­der­ly­ing con­di­tions that con­tribute to gang ac­tiv­i­ty and crim­i­nal be­hav­iour.

Seep­er­sad ques­tioned whether suf­fi­cient at­ten­tion was be­ing paid to youth de­vel­op­ment, ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties, fam­i­ly sup­port and pro­grammes de­signed to pre­vent young peo­ple from join­ing gangs.

He not­ed that the ear­li­er Zone of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) Bill, which was not passed, con­tained pro­vi­sions ad­dress­ing so­cial in­ter­ven­tions in com­mu­ni­ties sub­ject­ed to re­stric­tions.

He ar­gued that the ab­sence of sim­i­lar pro­vi­sions in the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Act rep­re­sents a fun­da­men­tal weak­ness which should be ad­dressed, po­ten­tial­ly through an amend­ment.

On con­cerns that lock­downs could push crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in­to neigh­bour­ing com­mu­ni­ties, Seep­er­sad said his eval­u­a­tions of pre­vi­ous vi­o­lence-in­ter­rup­tion pro­grammes in Trinidad and To­ba­go found no ev­i­dence that mur­ders were dis­placed. He ex­plained that gang vi­o­lence tends to re­main ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly con­cen­trat­ed, al­though crimes such as rob­beries, home in­va­sions and ve­hi­cle thefts could po­ten­tial­ly shift else­where.

Don’t stig­ma­tise Mal­oney res­i­dents

Mean­while, Seep­er­sad is urg­ing the au­thor­i­ties to en­sure that res­i­dents of Mal­oney are treat­ed with dig­ni­ty and re­spect as po­lice im­ple­ment the leg­is­la­tion.

His com­ments fol­low con­cerns raised by Trinci­ty/Mal­oney MP Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, who ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of im­pos­ing re­stric­tions with­out ad­e­quate­ly in­form­ing res­i­dents, leav­ing some fright­ened and con­fused about the per­mit sys­tem.

Seep­er­sad ac­knowl­edged that some dif­fi­cul­ties could arise dur­ing the first few ap­pli­ca­tions of the leg­is­la­tion but said clear pro­to­cols and ef­fec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion were crit­i­cal.

He stressed that the over­whelm­ing ma­jor­i­ty of peo­ple liv­ing in com­mu­ni­ties af­fect­ed by such op­er­a­tions were law-abid­ing cit­i­zens who should not be made to feel like crim­i­nals.

“The na­tion­al pub­lic cer­tain­ly should not stig­ma­tise peo­ple in a par­tic­u­lar com­mu­ni­ty sim­ply be­cause that com­mu­ni­ty has been locked down,” he said.

Seep­er­sad ar­gued that the re­stric­tions should be un­der­stood as a re­sponse to the ac­tions of a small mi­nor­i­ty rather than a re­flec­tion of the en­tire com­mu­ni­ty.

Spe­cial op­er­a­tions must be ap­plied equal­ly

Seep­er­sad al­so wel­comed the de­ci­sion to ap­ply the leg­is­la­tion in Mal­oney, a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)-con­trolled con­stituen­cy, de­spite Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ear­li­er sug­ges­tion that spe­cial op­er­a­tions would be lim­it­ed to Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC)-held con­stituen­cies be­cause of the Op­po­si­tion’s lack of sup­port.

He said laws must be ap­plied na­tion­al­ly and equal­ly, de­scrib­ing the de­ci­sion as a pos­i­tive in­di­ca­tion that the leg­is­la­tion was be­ing im­ple­ment­ed with­out po­lit­i­cal dis­tinc­tion.