Jensen La Vende

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad says in­ac­tion at the high­est lev­el is the rea­son the coun­try has one of the high­est mur­der tolls to date with a week left in the year. 

Ac­cord­ing to the TTPS web­site, the high­est mur­der toll ever was 605 in 2022. As of yes­ter­day, the TTPS said the toll was 602 af­ter three mur­ders Sun­day night in­to yes­ter­day, with the cor­re­spond­ing toll for the same pe­ri­od last year be­ing 560. Last year end­ed with 577 mur­ders. 

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Seep­er­sad said there is tech­nol­o­gy avail­able to fight crime that can be im­ple­ment­ed but is not. He said even if the po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torate is un­aware of what they are, there are ex­perts able to as­sist at a mo­ment’s no­tice. 

“The is­sue for us is not a case of that we can’t fig­ure out what to do, or it is a prob­lem too dif­fi­cult to solve. The prob­lem for us is one of in­ac­tion.” 

He said it is not that the pow­ers that be are un­aware of what strate­gies can be im­ple­ment­ed to ad­dress crime ei­ther, as there is re­search done in the re­gion to ad­dress it. 

“So, the prob­lem for us in this coun­try is not that we don’t know what to do; the prob­lem is one of in­ac­tion, that we sim­ply don’t do what needs to be done. At this point, it is a waste of time to start to out­line all the plans and strate­gies,” Seep­er­sad said. 

He said there are a lot of “talk shops,” even at the high­est lev­els, where peo­ple “walk away feel­ing nice about them­selves, but noth­ing gets done.” 

Al­so com­ment­ing on the is­sue, Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith said now is not a time for po­lit­i­cal gloat­ing but for the vot­ing pop­u­la­tion to take note that the cur­rent regime has failed and act ac­cord­ing­ly. 

“Trinidad and To­ba­go is suf­fer­ing. This is our dark­est year. Grant­ed, many mis­takes have been made but rather than us point­ing fin­gers, what we need to do is fo­cus on we can do to fix it to make this coun­try a bet­ter place in 2025,” said Grif­fith, a for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er. 

Grif­fith added that one so­lu­tion was the re-im­ple­men­ta­tion of poli­cies he ini­ti­at­ed when he was com­mis­sion­er. He said while the mur­der toll will not re­turn to a lev­el be­low 100, it can be halved in a year or two. 

“The coun­try is un­der siege. Busi­ness­es are clos­ing. Al­most every cit­i­zen has been af­fect­ed by crime in one way or the oth­er. But there is on­ly one word, a de­gree of hope, not the po­lit­i­cal par­ty, but ac­tu­al hope that we can turn this around if we work to­geth­er as one and re­lease who the re­al en­e­my is, which is not the po­lit­i­cal par­ties but the crim­i­nals,” Grif­fith said. 

Mean­while, re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Garvin Heer­ah said po­lice need to im­plore an “in-your-face” tac­tic to ad­dress crime.  

“In-your-face polic­ing is a tac­tic that should be used. We need to see that ap­proach, we need to see that they are mak­ing it un­com­fort­able for the crim­i­nals. That liv­ing in your face, mak­ing you not free to car­ry about your busi­ness. Not free to do as you want as a crim­i­nal, mak­ing it un­com­fort­able. So, I think in-your-face polic­ing needs to be em­ployed and pushed hard in an ef­fort to at least re­duc­ing homi­cides that we are faced with.” 

Heer­ah said the sit­u­a­tion now calls for bold lead­er­ship and un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment, as the coun­try can­not af­ford frag­ment­ed ap­proach­es or de­layed ac­tion. Both a co­he­sive and sus­tained na­tion­al ef­fort is re­quired, he said, “to dis­man­tle the ma­chin­ery of vi­o­lence that holds our na­tion hostage.” 

He said the pow­ers that be should fo­cus on stem­ming the il­le­gal im­por­ta­tion of guns and am­mu­ni­tion, max­imis­ing in­tel­li­gence ar­chi­tec­ture, dis­rupt­ing gangs, strength­en­ing the prison com­mand struc­tures, fos­ter­ing in­ter-agency col­lab­o­ra­tion and tack­ling the root caus­es of crime. 

Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness­es chair­man Vivek Char­ran, mean­while, said crime seems to be the on­ly lev­eller, as it af­fects all walks of life. And with seem­ing­ly low re­sults from the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty strate­gies, he said more must be done. 

“The fact is there must al­so be col­lab­o­ra­tion and sup­port from the pub­lic,” he said, adding that it is in the pub­lic’s in­ter­est to as­sist au­thor­i­ties in ad­dress­ing crime, par­tic­u­lar­ly mur­ders. 

At a me­dia con­fer­ence last week, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­lad Hinds sought to as­sure the pub­lic that the po­lice, and by ex­ten­sion his min­istry, are work­ing to ad­dress the crime sit­u­a­tion, adding that there have been small suc­cess­es.

“In so far as pub­lic dis­qui­et, I do un­der­stand how the pub­lic will feel, but all I can do as Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty is give the as­sur­ance that work is be­ing done in that re­gard,” he said then. 

Hinds men­tioned the re­cent for­ma­tion of the An­ti-Ex­tor­tion Unit, which re­sult­ed in sev­er­al charges be­ing laid and two kid­nap vic­tims be­ing re­leased, as suc­cess­es of the po­lice. He said these showed work was be­ing done in sup­press­ing crime.