KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Amid an un­re­lent­ing crime cri­sis and an on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE), res­i­dents and busi­ness own­ers in com­mu­ni­ties ear­marked for the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed joint po­lice-army se­cu­ri­ty posts say they wel­come any mea­sure that could im­prove pub­lic safe­ty, but be­lieve the ini­tia­tive will ul­ti­mate­ly be judged by whether it de­liv­ers re­sults.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­cent­ly an­nounced plans to es­tab­lish 30 joint po­lice-army se­cu­ri­ty posts across the coun­try with­in four months.

The pro­posed posts will be placed at strate­gic lo­ca­tions, in­clud­ing the Tarou­ba Fly­over, Grand Bazaar In­ter­change, Cou­va In­ter­change, Williamsville Junc­tion, La Ro­maine in­ter­sec­tion of the South­ern Main Road and South Trunk Road, La­dy Young Road, Gol­con­da In­ter­change and Tor­rib Road in Tabaquite. Six ad­di­tion­al sites are still to be de­ter­mined.

The Gov­ern­ment said the ini­tia­tive is aimed at in­creas­ing se­cu­ri­ty vis­i­bil­i­ty, de­ter­ring crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty and im­prov­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence dur­ing a pe­ri­od of height­ened con­cern over crime.

For one Preysal busi­ness­woman, her sup­port is root­ed in the dai­ly fear cre­at­ed by crime. While she ac­knowl­edged that col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the po­lice and army was not new, she re­mained un­cer­tain whether the pro­posed se­cu­ri­ty posts would make a sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence, es­pe­cial­ly with the coun­try al­ready un­der an SoE.

How­ev­er, she said any ini­tia­tive that could re­store con­fi­dence among cit­i­zens and busi­ness own­ers would be wel­comed.

“To come to work every day and you’re not sure whether you would re­turn to your loved ones, it is scary. The coun­try is in a state where peo­ple are afraid to ven­ture in­to their busi­ness and work­places, be­cause of so many crimes. Def­i­nite­ly, it would be a bless­ing if this could re­al­ly work.”

In Preysal, res­i­dent Bran­don Seale, who was re­cent­ly a vic­tim of an as­sault and rob­bery, wel­comed the an­nounce­ment, say­ing the pres­ence of po­lice and sol­diers could act as a de­ter­rent.

Al­though Seale de­scribed Preysal as a pos­i­tive com­mu­ni­ty, he be­lieved the se­cu­ri­ty post could pre­vent crim­i­nals from mov­ing through the area.

“It will be like a bor­der, like a brick wall. The crim­i­nals are not pass­ing through here.”

Res­i­dents in Williamsville al­so backed the pro­pos­al but said more de­tails were need­ed on how the posts would op­er­ate.

Joseph Changiah said a ful­ly func­tion­ing se­cu­ri­ty post could free up pa­trol ve­hi­cles to re­spond more quick­ly to emer­gen­cies.

Fel­low vil­lager Hu­bert Lake said a stronger se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence could help re­store peace in com­mu­ni­ties af­fect­ed by fear of crime.

“That is a very good ini­tia­tive be­cause, if you just see the place, there are too many home in­va­sions right now. Every­body has to be locked up. Every­body has to close their gates.”

Lake said while there are most­ly pet­ty crimes in Williamsville, he sup­port­ed a proac­tive ap­proach to polic­ing rather than wait­ing for crime to es­ca­late.

Near the Gol­con­da In­ter­change, Isa­iah Fran­cois said the pro­posed se­cu­ri­ty posts could help in­ter­cept il­le­gal firearms and drugs through in­creased checks.

“They might catch some­thing. They might catch some drugs. It is a great idea.”

How­ev­er, he said the ini­tia­tive must be sup­port­ed by mea­sures tar­get­ing the caus­es of crime, par­tic­u­lar­ly among young peo­ple.