There are a few in­di­ca­tions that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Gov­ern­ment is ap­proach­ing a junc­ture of un­cer­tain­ty, with trou­ble por­tend­ing along the road. Aware of that emerg­ing pos­si­bil­i­ty, there are dis­plays of dis­com­fort lead­ing to con­trary ac­tions.

The suc­cess af­ter the first state of emer­gency, i.e., of the 42 per cent re­duc­tion in mur­ders, has been used as a life­line to in­di­cate suc­cess by the Gov­ern­ment’s ac­tions.

How­ev­er, the cur­rent da­ta gen­er­at­ed by the po­lice re­lat­ing to mur­ders show the in­creas­ing in­ef­fec­tive­ness of the SoE mod­el. For the com­par­a­tive pe­ri­od of 2026 with 2025, the mur­der count is 169 for this year as op­posed to 173 for 2025. For June of 2026, the mur­ders up to Thurs­day, 11th, are 17 com­pared to 12 on the same date in June 2025.

It’s clear, there­fore, that the con­tin­u­ing de­pen­dence on the SoE so­lu­tion, the ZOSO bill hav­ing been stran­gled in Par­lia­ment, is los­ing its ef­fec­tive­ness. Most re­cent­ly, the po­lice re­sort­ed to the ban­ning of protests in 15 se­lect­ed ar­eas as an­oth­er mea­sure to curb the dis­sat­is­fac­tion of pro­test­ers.

The above re­al­i­ty, there­fore, must be of se­ri­ous cause for con­cern for Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar, her At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, and min­is­ters with na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty port­fo­lios, Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro and the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil. They must now be con­tem­plat­ing the re­al­i­ty that round­ing up and lock­ing up a few gang mem­bers dur­ing an emer­gency will not and can­not solve the crime prob­lem, which is now en­camped in and around the so­ci­ety.

For over 25 years, there has been lit­tle mean­ing­ful pen­e­tra­tion in­to the gangs, their ac­tiv­i­ties, and the re­cruit­ment of young mem­bers, all of which have col­lec­tive­ly negat­ed any ben­e­fit which has and can be de­rived from the im­po­si­tion of con­tin­u­ing states of emer­gency.

What is most im­por­tant and rel­e­vant is that the var­ied rea­sons for young peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly, be­ing vul­ner­a­ble to adopt­ing crim­i­nal lifestyles, have not even been con­sid­ered, far less ad­dressed with plans and pro­grammes to counter the rea­sons be­hind the crim­i­nal­is­ing of groups of young peo­ple, and the el­ders who draw them in­to the blan­ket of crime.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie and his Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar are again adopt­ing the strat­e­gy of threat­en­ing groups of cit­i­zens, on this oc­ca­sion, the “one per­centers”. In the lat­est and most un­for­tu­nate at­tack with­out sup­port­ing ev­i­dence, AG Je­re­mie has warmed over the ac­cu­sa­tions and threats against the “one per­centers”.

The pre­ferred and pro­duc­tive ac­tion is for the AG and his PM to take the in­for­ma­tion to the po­lice and let the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem deal with it. Sim­i­lar­ly, to counter crim­i­nal­i­ty, al­leged­ly spread deep in­to the pol­i­tics of the coun­try, is for PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar to hand the in­for­ma­tion she has that the PNM is fund­ed by drug deal­ers to the po­lice.

One ques­tion here is, what is the im­pact of such ev­i­dence-less threats on so­cial re­la­tions in so­ci­ety when groups of cit­i­zens, with­out ev­i­dence and po­lice ac­tion, are be­ing de­monised as the in­sti­ga­tors and sup­port­ers of crime?

Do the gangs of crim­i­nals feel jus­ti­fied in their ac­tions if there are in­di­vid­u­als and groups of “good cit­i­zens” who are al­leged­ly car­ry­ing out crim­i­nal­i­ty but are al­lowed to live “high on the hog” while the crim­i­nals get thrown in­to stink­ing jail cells, or gunned down on the streets for their de­viance?

When he was prime min­is­ter, Patrick Man­ning adopt­ed a sim­i­lar pro­pa­gan­dis­tic ap­proach by in­di­cat­ing that he and the gov­ern­ment knew who the “Mis­ter Big” was; noth­ing fol­lowed the hot air.

How many times has PM Per­sad-Bisses­sar threat­ened this group, that group, even her min­is­ters with a set of “bad­john” talk? Where and what has it led to?

Those last few para­graphs are rel­e­vant de­par­tures to il­lus­trate the in­creas­ing un­ease be­ing dis­played by the Gov­ern­ment in its at­tempts to achieve the de­sired un­rav­el­ling of the gangs of crim­i­nals. The re­cent pas­sage of yet an­oth­er SoE law is proof enough of what I am ar­gu­ing, i.e., that the in­abil­i­ty of the Gov­ern­ment, the po­lice and se­cu­ri­ty forces to dis­man­tle the gangs, and to deal ef­fec­tive­ly with those who al­leged­ly are the fun­ders and great ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the trade, is caus­ing deep dis­com­fort in­side the Cab­i­net.

One rel­e­vant ques­tion is whether the blow­ing up of the boats al­leged­ly car­ry­ing out the drugs trade in this part of the hemi­sphere has failed to dis­man­tle the in­ter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal net­works?

One not­ed over-re­ac­tion has been that of the pro­test­ers who have re­spond­ed in an un­der­stand­able man­ner, giv­en what they saw on cam­era, in the killing of Joshua Sama­roo, the in­jur­ing of Ka­ia Sealey, yet the lat­ter be­ing charged for manslaugh­ter.

The one log­i­cal and tem­per­ate re­ac­tion has been that of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tion to urge re­straint and to ask of the pro­test­ers, in­deed the whole so­ci­ety, to have pa­tience and to await a fair process in the courts. But is there suf­fi­cient trust spread abroad in the fair­ness of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem? And has the re­ac­tion by the po­lice and Gov­ern­ment giv­en rise to con­cern that jus­tice will not be done?

To be con­tin­ued.

Tony Rakhal-Fras­er – free­lance jour­nal­ist, for­mer re­porter/cur­rent af­fairs pro­gramme host, and News Di­rec­tor at TTT; pro­gramme pro­duc­er/cur­rent af­fairs di­rec­tor at Ra­dio Trinidad; cor­re­spon­dent for the BBC Caribbean Ser­vice and the As­so­ci­at­ed Press; grad­u­ate of UWI, CARI­MAC, Mona, and St Au­gus­tine – In­sti­tute of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions.