The State of Emer­gency (SoE) has not end­ed the mur­ders, nor has it put an end to the grue­some­ness of some mur­ders, but, the num­ber of mur­ders has been re­duced, and the coun­try feels a lit­tle calmer, a lit­tle less on edge.

The brazen ex­e­cu­tion of at­tor­ney Ran­dall Hec­tor trig­gered fear among at­tor­neys in the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions and oth­er at­tor­neys in­volved in crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tion mat­ters on be­half of the State, be­cause it may very well have been a warn­ing to many.

Since then, judges have pub­licly ex­pressed fear and have high­light­ed their need for greater pro­tec­tion. And now, the Prime Min­is­ter has ex­pressed out­rage that po­lice fear gang­sters and shut the doors of po­lice sta­tions at night to bet­ter pro­tect them­selves from crim­i­nals. The Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice has spo­ken up in de­fence of her “brave” of­fi­cers. But no one can de­ny that be­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer is a dan­ger­ous job, and I would not be sur­prised if po­lice are in­deed fear­ful of pow­er­ful gang­sters and out­ra­geous­ly dar­ing crim­i­nals in this coun­try, who can sur­prise you, am­bush you, and ex­e­cute you in front of any num­ber of peo­ple in any place, with im­mense fire­pow­er which ex­ceeds that of the po­lice, with­out fear of con­se­quence.

Politi­cians must be afraid too. Af­ter all, gang­sters and crim­i­nals rove the coun­try. They are well known to politi­cians, who some­times so­cialise with them and even take pho­tos with them. These Trinidad and To­ba­go-born and bred gang­sters live in com­mu­ni­ties, in con­stituen­cies and have cir­cles of in­flu­ence and cir­cles of in­flu­encers all in this same small so­ci­ety.

These things make them im­por­tant in pol­i­tics, cam­paign­ing and vote-get­ting and be­cause of this, politi­cians in pow­er have been re­luc­tant to take a hard law and or­der line and of­ten de­fer to them. And the jus­tice sys­tem from po­lice through courts, prison and af­ter has been com­pro­mised. Most of these known gang­sters have lit­tle or no crim­i­nal records!

Politi­cians rep­re­sent con­stituen­cies in which gang­sters have re­al in­flu­ence and pow­er. The po­lice, army and coast guard are re­cruit­ed from all over, but es­pe­cial­ly from con­stituen­cies in which some gang­sters hold sway. Some­times, politi­cians rec­om­mend po­ten­tial re­cruits who are ab­sorbed in­to the mil­i­tary sys­tem. We avoid ac­knowl­edg­ing such arrange­ments and de­vel­op­ments but once ac­knowl­edged, it is easy to see how mul­ti­ple com­plex­i­ties de­bil­i­tate the jus­tice sys­tem and com­pro­mise law en­force­ment. When you add drugs, ter­ri­to­ry, cor­rup­tion, mon­ey, sex and guns to this com­pli­cat­ed mix, it is not dif­fi­cult to un­der­stand how we got here. And to the very par­ti­san, let me say that it is not on­ly be­cause of “Row­ley” or “Kam­la.”

In one re­search ar­ti­cle on crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go, the au­thors (lo­cal as well as in­ter­na­tion­al) cite the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion prac­tice of re­fer­ring a crim­i­nal to a gang­ster leader for dis­ci­plin­ing and straight­en­ing out, rather than charg­ing the mis­cre­ant with a crime.

Re­flect a lit­tle on your own ex­pe­ri­ence. If a known gang­ster can find him­self in Pres­i­dent’s House for the swear­ing-in of a min­is­ter, where can a gang­ster not be and what can a gang­ster not do and how can one not be afraid of gang­sters?

And what pre­vents a gang­ster or group of gang­sters from threat­en­ing the life of a prime min­is­ter, pres­i­dent, min­is­ter, par­lia­men­tar­i­an, po­lice com­mis­sion­er, judge, mag­is­trate, prison head, cus­toms or im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cial? Don’t just dis­miss this: and it doesn’t help to squirm. Think. Re­flect. And an­swer hon­est­ly with con­science. And per­haps now, you will be­gin to un­der­stand why politi­cians, through the State with tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey, have cre­at­ed op­por­tu­ni­ties for law­less­ness. Whether quar­ries, con­tracts, make-work pro­grammes or sport and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment pro­grammes. In the end, a trag­ic mess all around.

Over the years, we have built up a part­ner­ship in crime through the com­pro­mise of sys­tems and the law, which has fu­elled cor­rup­tion. In the process, the bal­ance of pow­er has shift­ed in favour of gangs and a for­mi­da­ble crim­i­nal en­ter­prise deeply in­ter­twined with our “le­git­i­mate” in­sti­tu­tions and the le­gal in­fra­struc­ture. It is the se­vere im­bal­ance that is the big­ger prob­lem now.

The re­al ques­tion is: how are we go­ing to get out? Can we get out?

One thing is sure. The State of Emer­gency will come to an end, and what then? What can be done be­tween now and April that would make a de­ci­sive dif­fer­ence?

Elec­tion will come and go but how will this shift in the bal­ance of pow­er be­tween law­less­ness and law­ful gov­ern­ment and gov­er­nance change, with­out and with­in?

That is the burn­ing ques­tion.