SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

The pro­lif­er­a­tion in crime and the mur­der rate in T&T have been chal­leng­ing gov­ern­ment ad­min­is­tra­tions over the last two decades, forc­ing them to roll out sev­er­al crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tives.

Past and present gov­ern­ments have come up with a myr­i­ad of crime-fight­ing strate­gies which crim­i­nol­o­gists Dr Keron King and Dau­rius Figueira be­lieve have not been work­ing as our coun­try’s mur­ders con­tin­ue to climb.

For this year so far, T&T has record­ed 496 killings.

Last year, 605 peo­ple were mur­dered–the high­est in our coun­try’s his­to­ry.

Be­tween 2011 and 2022, T&T lost 5,439 cit­i­zens to vi­o­lent mur­ders, large­ly through the use of im­port­ed firearms and am­mu­ni­tion.

As the au­thor­i­ties grap­ple with the mur­der rate they have in­vest­ed mil­lions of tax­pay­ers dol­lars on ini­tia­tives that have brought lit­tle com­fort to a na­tion now liv­ing in fear as the body count ris­es dai­ly.

As of last De­cem­ber, the Gov­ern­ment had spent $54 bil­lion on the coun­try’s na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty over the last eight years, with at least $828 mil­lion of that fig­ure go­ing to the TTPS, yet cit­i­zens are forced to watch over their shoul­ders in their homes and pub­lic spaces, as crim­i­nals have be­come more brazen in their at­tacks.

These are some of the crime ini­tia­tives gov­ern­ments have im­ple­ment­ed over the years.

* In 2002, then na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Howard Chin Lee un­der the Patrick Man­ning-led ad­min­is­tra­tion promised to put the squeeze on the na­tion’s ris­ing crime and un­veiled “Op­er­a­tion Ana­con­da”.

More than 300 po­lice­men and sol­diers car­ried out raids as well as searched in­di­vid­u­als, ve­hi­cles, and homes along the East-West cor­ri­dor where there was an up­swing in crime.

*An­oth­er crime-fight­ing mea­sure Man­ning used against the crim­i­nal el­e­ments was the blimp. The state-owned sur­veil­lance Sky­ship 600 was pur­chased in 2006 and was op­er­at­ed and main­tained at an an­nu­al cost of $17,010,000. It was pur­chased for $15,750,000 af­ter a lease arrange­ment that cost close to $5 mil­lion. The sky­ship which was used to mon­i­tor high-crime ar­eas had re­placed the Sky Drag­on, a $19 mil­lion in­vest­ment that nev­er worked. Even­tu­al­ly, the sur­veil­lance equip­ment was put up for sale. A US bid­der of­fered US$50,000 for the ship.

*The Cit­i­zen Se­cu­ri­ty Pro­gramme (CSP) which was launched in 2007 was aimed at pre­vent­ing vi­o­lence in 22 high-risk com­mu­ni­ties. The pro­gramme, ini­ti­at­ed by the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry and par­tial­ly fi­nanced by the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IADB) was shut down. Ac­cord­ing to then-na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lion, the CSP was fund­ed through a loan from the IADB of US$24.5 mil­lion. The to­tal bud­get for the pro­gramme was US$35 mil­lion.

*There was a shroud of se­cre­cy in 2009 re­gard­ing de­tails about Cameroon Ross’ an­ti-crime plan for Man­ning’s gov­ern­ment. The plan mas­ter­mind­ed by 60-year-old Ross, a re­tired ma­jor gen­er­al from Cana­da, fo­cused on re­struc­tur­ing the coun­try’s se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments. Lit­tle or no in­for­ma­tion was re­vealed about this crime plan.

* A pro­gramme ini­ti­at­ed by the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment un­der then prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to help deal with crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty was the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion’s 2011 “Colour Me Or­ange” which cre­at­ed em­ploy­ment for per­sons in “hot spot” ar­eas.

It was al­leged that this pro­gramme was in­stead fu­elling crime while $63.4 mil­lion was spent on salaries dur­ing its three phas­es.

Even­tu­al­ly, the pro­gramme had to be shelved.

* The PP gov­ern­ment al­so launched the Hoop of Life Com­mu­ni­ty Bas­ket­ball League project which saw Amer­i­can bas­ket­ball leg­end Shaquille O’Neal lec­tur­ing to men to leave be­hind their lives of crime.

The 2012 project was tout­ed as a new ini­tia­tive by the then gov­ern­ment to bring about pos­i­tive change in the lives of the youth of the coun­try.

The in­au­gur­al com­pe­ti­tion was staged at a cost of $12 mil­lion over a three-year pe­ri­od, bring­ing the to­tal fig­ure to $36 mil­lion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar had said the vic­to­ry was not on­ly for the team but for every­one who lived in the Laven­tille com­mu­ni­ty. She said when Laven­tille was at peace, cre­ativ­i­ty pros­pered and when it was at war, na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment was hurt. Less than two years af­ter the pro­gramme got off the ground it was es­ti­mat­ed to have cost tax­pay­ers $70 mil­lion, ac­cord­ing to then-na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith. The project end­ed in 2014 as it was not re­newed.

* The UNC al­so in­ject­ed $400 mil­lion in­to the con­tro­ver­sial Life­S­port Pro­gramme, cre­at­ed in 2012 to help en­gage at-risk youths to turn around their lives, as the au­thor­i­ties deal with the spi­ralling crime.

The pro­gramme had to be ter­mi­nat­ed in 2014 by Per­sad-Bisses­sar and an au­dit of the pro­gramme showed a num­ber of ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in­clud­ing al­leged fraud, ab­sence of prop­er pro­cure­ment prac­tices, over­pay­ment for goods and ser­vices, theft, ques­tion­able pay­ment, and pos­si­ble crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties. State­ments from mem­bers of the TTPS sug­gest­ed that there may have been crim­i­nal el­e­ments in po­si­tions of su­per­vi­sion and co­or­di­na­tion with­in the pro­gramme. It was rec­om­mend­ed that the mat­ter be re­ferred to the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and the rel­e­vant law en­force­ment agen­cies.

* In mid-2017, “Project Rea­son” which was based on the cure vi­o­lence in­ter­ven­tion mod­el was pre­ma­ture­ly ter­mi­nat­ed for ad­min­is­tra­tive rea­sons.

* The PNM al­so pulled the Com­mu­ni­ty Com­fort Pa­trol (CCP) pro­gramme one year af­ter as­sum­ing of­fice in 2015, re­sult­ing in 300 work­ers be­ing sent home. This pro­gramme, im­ple­ment­ed by the UNC in 2014 was to make cit­i­zens feel safer in their homes and com­mu­ni­ties, but was re­port­ed­ly cost­ing the State mil­lions of dol­lars an­nu­al­ly. In 2018 Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh told the Par­lia­ment that the con­tract to rent the ve­hi­cles for the CCP pro­gramme was $120 mil­lion a year. The pro­gramme was re­launched in 2020 but was even­tu­al­ly can­celled by then-se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Stu­art Young.

* Dur­ing his term as na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, Ed­mund Dil­lon launched the Na­tion­al Crime Pre­ven­tion Pro­gramme in 2018, as he called on the Gov­ern­ment, Op­po­si­tion and cit­i­zens to put aside their dif­fer­ences in the war on crime.

* In 2019, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Gov­ern­ment (PNM) con­cep­tu­alised the Mil­i­tary-Led Aca­d­e­m­ic Train­ing pro­gramme de­signed to help at-risk youths ages 16-20.

Last Au­gust, the fu­ture of the pro­gramme arose af­ter ter­mi­na­tion no­tices were al­leged­ly giv­en to staff mem­bers, end­ing their re­spec­tive con­tracts.

This was de­nied by the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vices which stat­ed that the pro­gramme was on­ly sus­pend­ed due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

* The most re­cent crime-fight­ing mea­sure in­tro­duced last Sep­tem­ber by the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) then act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er Mc­Don­ald Ja­cob was the Gang Re­duc­tion and Com­mu­ni­ty Em­pow­er­ment Project (GRACE), which was aimed at re­duc­ing gang ac­tiv­i­ty and strength­en­ing the TTPS’ com­mu­ni­ty-based polic­ing ini­tia­tives.

King said over the years, gov­ern­ments have im­ple­ment­ed sev­er­al crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tives which have brought lit­tle re­sults to the pop­u­la­tion.

From 2006, King said crime be­gan to get out of hand with the coun­try record­ing an av­er­age of 400 mur­ders per year.

Around that time, he said, the TTPS came up with the Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis Branch (CA­PA) to geocode crimes and their lo­ca­tions.

“You have to eval­u­ate what was done. So if we had CA­PA from 2006 when we had 400 mur­ders per year....now we have to an­swer the ques­tion of why CA­PA did not bring the re­sults we want­ed”

King said if re­ports are com­piled from these pro­grammes, then it is cer­tain­ly not shared with the pop­u­la­tion.

“We have in­vest­ed too much of tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey in ed­u­cat­ing peo­ple in crim­i­nol­o­gy to not be talk­ing about this is­sue from a sci­en­tif­ic point of view. Every decade will con­tin­ue to be worse than be­fore.”

He ques­tioned if the GRACE pro­gramme had re­duced gangs and gang vi­o­lence since its launch.

“If we don’t do any­thing dif­fer­ent the homi­cide rate will con­tin­ue to in­crease. The on­ly way we will know what to do dif­fer­ent­ly is if we eval­u­ate what we have done in the past.”

Go­ing for­ward, King said we need to de­vel­op a clear crime pre­ven­tion and vi­o­lence re­duc­tion strat­e­gy.

Figueira ex­pressed a dif­fer­ent view, say­ing the Gov­ern­ment first had to tack­le transna­tion­al crime to get to the heart of the mur­ders and crime.

He said the fun­da­men­tal prob­lem with suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments in­clud­ing the PNM “is that they have no con­sis­ten­cy in their ap­proach and they re­fused to pub­licly recog­nise the im­pact of transna­tion­al crime in T&T.”

He said crime-fight­ing pro­grammes “can­not im­pact on the ground be­cause all gov­ern­ments have failed to ac­cept the re­al­i­ty of how transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime from the 1960s to now has changed spe­cif­ic com­mu­ni­ties which have spread through­out the coun­try that is caus­ing may­hem and mad­ness.

Figueira said Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s re­lease on Tues­day that the Gov­ern­ment would re­dou­ble ef­forts to cur­tail acts of vi­o­lence has clear­ly demon­strat­ed that “the horse has al­ready bolt­ed from the barn.”

He said Row­ley’s state­ment that crime has “gone be­yond con­cern­ing to ridicu­lous” showed a sense of pan­ic by the Gov­ern­ment as we ap­proach the 2025 gen­er­al elec­tion.