On March 3, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar once again draped our na­tion in the suf­fo­cat­ing cloak of a State of Emer­gency. Bare­ly one month af­ter the pre­vi­ous SoE ex­pired on Jan­u­ary 31st, she rushed to sus­pend our con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, cit­ing “cred­i­ble in­tel­li­gence” of vague threats sup­pos­ed­ly em­a­nat­ing from the prison sys­tem—gang reprisals and mass shoot­ings planned from be­hind bars. No names. No dates. No spe­cif­ic plots. No ev­i­dence pre­sent­ed to the pop­u­la­tion. Noth­ing. Just the same tired, opaque phrase we have heard for years.

It ap­pears that a hand­ful of hard­ened crim­i­nals locked in­side our pris­ons can in­tim­i­date the en­tire Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice and the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic in­to lock­ing down the whole coun­try. This is not lead­er­ship. This is the des­per­ate flail­ing of a regime that has run out of ideas, out of ex­cus­es, and out of cred­i­bil­i­ty. The SoE is no longer a tem­po­rary tool—it has be­come the de­fault crutch of a Gov­ern­ment too in­com­pe­tent to fix the po­lice, too ar­ro­gant to ad­mit de­feat, and too dan­ger­ous to democ­ra­cy to be al­lowed to con­tin­ue.

This is not Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s first rodeo with emer­gency pow­ers as a sup­posed crime-fight­ing mea­sure. Dur­ing her first term as Prime Min­is­ter from 2010 to 2015, she de­clared a lim­it­ed State of Emer­gency on Au­gust 21, 2011, tar­get­ing crime hotspots amid a surge in gang vi­o­lence and drug-re­lat­ed killings.

She ex­tend­ed it na­tion­wide, sus­pend­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al rights for months. Back then, as now, the promise was that ex­tra­or­di­nary mea­sures would de­liv­er safe­ty. Yet mur­ders re­mained stub­born­ly high through­out that pe­ri­od, with thou­sands lost to vi­o­lence un­der her watch. The SoE did not re­form the po­lice then, and it has not re­formed them now. It mere­ly pro­vid­ed a tem­po­rary il­lu­sion of con­trol while the un­der­ly­ing rot fes­tered.

Let us be bru­tal­ly clear: the con­tin­u­a­tion—and in­deed the re­peat­ed res­ur­rec­tion—of the SoE is an ex­plic­it ad­mis­sion that this Gov­ern­ment has failed to re­form the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice de­spite pour­ing hun­dreds of mil­lions—in­deed bil­lions—in­to the bud­get year af­ter year. In the 2024/2025 fis­cal year alone, the TTPS al­lo­ca­tion stood at $2.624 bil­lion, on­ly to be slashed by $116 mil­lion the fol­low­ing year to $2.508 bil­lion.

Yet, where are the re­formed, pro­fes­sion­al, com­mu­ni­ty-trust­ed po­lice of­fi­cers we were promised? Where is the mod­ern foren­sics lab, the vet­ted re­cruit­ment, the root-and-branch purge of cor­rup­tion? Nowhere. In­stead, the Gov­ern­ment hides be­hind emer­gency pow­ers and vague prison “in­tel­li­gence” be­cause the or­di­nary rule of law—the one they were elect­ed to up­hold—has col­lapsed un­der their watch.

The fail­ure to de­liv­er mean­ing­ful po­lice re­form has left crime unchecked, in­still­ing deep fear in the hearts of or­di­nary cit­i­zens. Year af­ter year, the gangs op­er­ate with im­puni­ty, shoot­ings erupt in broad day­light, and fam­i­lies live in ter­ror of reprisals.

This per­va­sive fear has worn down the pop­u­lace to such an ex­tent that many now pas­sive­ly ac­cept the SoE as the on­ly vis­i­ble “crime-fight­ing tool” avail­able. They have been con­di­tioned to be­lieve that sus­pend­ing their rights is bet­ter than noth­ing—that mar­tial law-lite is prefer­able to the dai­ly dread of vi­o­lent death. This is not ac­cep­tance born of con­fi­dence in gov­ern­ment; it is res­ig­na­tion born of de­spair. When cit­i­zens cheer or tol­er­ate the ero­sion of their free­doms be­cause they see no al­ter­na­tive, democ­ra­cy it­self is in mor­tal per­il.

Even more in­sult­ing is the Gov­ern­ment’s own con­tra­dic­tion on why crime sup­pos­ed­ly fell. In her New Year’s mes­sage, Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the TTPS trum­pet­ed a 42 per cent plunge in mur­ders—from a record 626 in 2024 to just 369 in 2025—the low­est since 2014. They want­ed us to be­lieve their “ze­ro-tol­er­ance” SoE and “strate­gic op­er­a­tions” de­liv­ered this mir­a­cle. Yet the same Prime Min­is­ter, in Sep­tem­ber 2025, open­ly cred­it­ed Amer­i­can mil­i­tary strikes on drug boats for cut­ting the flow of nar­cotics in­to T&T.

“I, along with most of the coun­try, am hap­py that the US naval de­ploy­ment is hav­ing suc­cess in their mis­sion,” she de­clared.

“The re­stric­tion of il­le­gal guns, drugs and hu­man traf­fick­ing will de­crease the vi­o­lence in the re­gion and in par­tic­u­lar our coun­try.”

She even boast­ed of ris­ing street prices for gan­ja and co­caine as proof the US strikes were work­ing. So which is it, Madam Prime Min­is­ter? Did your SoE slash mur­ders by 42 per cent, or did Don­ald Trump’s navy do the heavy lift­ing while your po­lice re­mained un­re­formed and in­ef­fec­tive? You can­not claim both vic­to­ries with­out ad­mit­ting one is a lie.

And then comes the ul­ti­mate be­tray­al of pub­lic trust: the so-called “stand-your-ground” leg­is­la­tion— the Home In­va­sion (Self-De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Bill 2025, rushed through Par­lia­ment and pro­claimed in­to law in Jan­u­ary 2026.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar hailed it as a cam­paign promise ful­filled, telling the na­tion cit­i­zens would soon en­joy eas­i­er ac­cess to le­gal firearms to pro­tect them­selves. Trans­la­tion: “The po­lice can­not and will not pro­tect you—so arm your­selves and good luck.”

This is not em­pow­er­ment; it is aban­don­ment. When a gov­ern­ment tells law-abid­ing cit­i­zens they must be­come their own last line of de­fence be­cause the state se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus has failed, it is is­su­ing a death cer­tifi­cate for the so­cial con­tract.

The mes­sage to every moth­er in Laven­tille, every fa­ther in Beetham, every grand­moth­er in Ari­ma is chill­ing: “Your safe­ty is now your prob­lem.”

Worse still, the SoE it­self is a naked sus­pen­sion of the fun­da­men­tal rights en­shrined in our Con­sti­tu­tion. Un­der its pro­vi­sions, cit­i­zens can be de­tained with­out charge, homes searched with­out war­rants, and move­ment re­strict­ed at the whim of the se­cu­ri­ty forces.

Sec­tion 13 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, which al­lows such dra­con­ian mea­sures, was nev­er meant to be­come a per­ma­nent sub­sti­tute for com­pe­tent polic­ing. Yet un­der both the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion and now this UNC one—echo­ing her own first-term play­book—the SoE has mor­phed from emer­gency mea­sure in­to gov­er­nance-by-de­cree. This is how democ­ra­cies die—not with tanks in the streets, but with politi­cians nor­mal­is­ing the ero­sion of rights while crime sta­tis­tics are ma­nip­u­lat­ed, vague prison threats are waved like mag­ic wands, and re­al po­lice re­form is kicked down the road.

The threat to our democ­ra­cy can­not be over­stat­ed. When a gov­ern­ment re­peat­ed­ly choos­es to sus­pend the Con­sti­tu­tion rather than fix the in­sti­tu­tions it con­trols, it sig­nals con­tempt for the rule of law. It tells the world that T&T is a failed state mas­querad­ing as a func­tion­ing re­pub­lic.

The gangs are not afraid of an SoE that comes and goes every few months. The drug lords laugh while Amer­i­can drones do the re­al in­ter­dic­tion work. And or­di­nary cit­i­zens, numbed by fear and failed promis­es, are left won­der­ing why they pay tax­es for a po­lice ser­vice that re­quires mar­tial law be­cause a few pris­on­ers al­leged­ly whis­pered threats.

Enough is enough. The con­tin­u­a­tion of the SoE is not a crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy—it is a po­lit­i­cal smoke­screen for cat­a­stroph­ic fail­ure. It ad­mits the po­lice are un­re­formed, the drug war is be­ing fought by for­eign mil­i­taries, and the cit­i­zen­ry—ter­rorised in­to sub­mis­sion—must now fend for them­selves or ac­cept rights sus­pen­sions trig­gered by shad­owy, un­proven prison whis­pers.

Dr Kei­th Row­ley’s PNM start­ed this dan­ger­ous prece­dent; Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s UNC has re­vived and per­fect­ed it across terms. Both have be­trayed the peo­ple.

The time for ex­cus­es is over. T&T de­serves re­al po­lice re­form, not emer­gency the­atre trig­gered by vague prison ru­mours. We de­serve a gov­ern­ment that builds in­sti­tu­tions in­stead of sus­pend­ing rights.

Un­til that day ar­rives, every ex­ten­sion of the SoE will re­main what it tru­ly is: a con­fes­sion of na­tion­al dis­grace, signed by those who swore to pro­tect us but chose in­stead to rule by de­cree—and to let fear and a few crim­i­nals make the peo­ple com­plic­it in their own sub­ju­ga­tion.