The coun­try’s crime sit­u­a­tion has led to the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice re­strict­ing leave for all po­lice of­fi­cers at this time. The move is meant to boost the TTPS’ man­pow­er in the streets, par­tic­u­lar­ly in crime hot spots.

In a memo ti­tled Leave Re­stric­tion dat­ed Au­gust 23 to all heads of Di­vi­sions, Branch­es and Sec­tions of the TTPS, act­ing Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, Ad­min­is­tra­tion and Op­er­a­tional Sup­port, Ram­nar­ine Sama­roo wrote, “Due to the ex­i­gen­cies of the ser­vice, all ap­pli­ca­tions for va­ca­tion leave ex­ceed­ing 14 days or re­quir­ing per­mis­sion to pro­ceed out of the coun­try will be re­strict­ed un­til fur­ther no­tice.”

The memo al­so stat­ed, “This mea­sure has be­come nec­es­sary to fa­cil­i­tate cur­rent an­ti-crime ini­tia­tives where ad­di­tion­al man­pow­er is re­quired to stymie the on­slaught of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.”

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Sama­roo said, “We have an up­surge in crime and that is what prompt­ed this as we need­ed ad­di­tion­al strength to do some ad­di­tion­al pa­trols.”

He de­nied there was a man­pow­er short­age in the TTPS. “We just need­ed some ad­di­tion­al strength in cer­tain high-crime ar­eas so we can have an in­creased po­lice pres­ence out­side at all times,” Sama­roo said.

He de­clined to say just how many of­fi­cers were on the pay­roll of the TTPS; how many were cur­rent­ly on leave; and what were the ide­al num­bers they were look­ing to put on the streets.

Asked how long this lat­est re­stric­tion was ex­pect­ed to re­main in ef­fect, Sama­roo as­sured it was, “Tem­po­rary un­til we get the crime rate down.”

He fur­ther told Guardian Me­dia it had be­come nec­es­sary, “For the na­tion’s safe­ty.”

De­clar­ing this was not a new strat­e­gy and had been em­ployed sev­er­al times in the past, Sama­roo said the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion had not de­vel­oped overnight but re­quired “cer­tain moves now to get the sit­u­a­tion un­der con­trol.”

Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion:

All hands need­ed now

T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA) Pres­i­dent, ASP Gideon Dick­son wel­comed the move.

“The de­ci­sion at this point in time we know, that it is con­struct un­der the per­spec­tive that some things are go­ing to be done op­er­a­tional wise, to treat with the crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty that cur­rent­ly ex­ists in our beloved twin-is­land state,” he ex­plained.

He agreed the all-hands-on-deck ap­proach was nec­es­sary for the au­thor­i­ties, “To do a push back on what is tak­ing place.”

But Dick­son ac­knowl­edged that the di­rec­tive would cause some in­con­ve­nience for both of­fi­cers and their fam­i­lies.

“The re­al­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion is one where there was a need for us to do some­thing dif­fer­ent at this point in time and utilise the re­sources we have to be able to dri­ve the crim­i­nal el­e­ments back,” he said.

In­di­cat­ing that long-term re­strict­ed leave for of­fi­cers was last in ef­fect dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, Dick­son said some sort of nor­mal­cy had on­ly re­turned to the ser­vice last year. He said of­fi­cers had been util­is­ing leave to try and once again achieve a work-life bal­ance and to re­duce burn-out.

But Dick­son con­ced­ed, “In the in­ter­im, the crime can­not con­tin­ue to move in the di­rec­tion we are see­ing it there, es­pe­cial­ly where the homi­cides are con­cerned.”