Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

With the coun­try ap­proach­ing the one-month mark of the State of Emer­gency (SoE), there are con­trast­ing views from crim­i­nol­o­gists about its ef­fec­tive­ness in curb­ing crime, so far.

At yes­ter­day’s po­lice me­dia brief­ing, DCP Ju­nior Ben­jamin said there have been 25 mur­ders so far, com­pared to 37 for the same pe­ri­od last year.

Ben­jamin added, “In terms of the num­ber of op­er­a­tions thus far, 1445 op­er­a­tions, we have tar­get­ed in terms of pri­or­i­ty of­fend­ers, 1,316 per­sons. We have con­duct­ed 8,706 search­es. From those search­es 1,142 per­sons have been ar­rest­ed, we have re­cov­ered so far 50 firearms and 1,270 as­sort­ed am­mu­ni­tions.”

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Mal­isa Nep­tune-Fi­garo be­lieves it is still too soon to prop­er­ly judge the ef­fi­ca­cy of the SoE which was de­clared on De­cem­ber 30, 2024.

She told Guardian Me­dia that the State and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) can­not get rid of crime in one month.

“I think we have to con­sis­tent­ly go on with these ex­er­cis­es to see an over­all ef­fec­tive change. Go­ing hard on the crim­i­nals in this pe­ri­od of time would on­ly show, yes, we have a de­crease in mur­ders not count­ing the po­lice killings, but I think we will see a lit­tle change,” she said.

Nep­tune-Fi­garo added, “It’s a lit­tle too soon to eval­u­ate, I think we should give them the ben­e­fit of the doubt at this time that they are do­ing in-depth in­ves­ti­ga­tions, they are do­ing po­lice ex­er­cis­es and ex­er­cis­es that are ben­e­fi­cial to curb­ing some type of crime like gang ac­tiv­i­ty, so let us give the Po­lice Ser­vice the ben­e­fit that they are work­ing to­wards a goal, we can’t on­ly mea­sure these ex­er­cis­es we need to see the end re­sult.”

But she does not be­lieve the SoE should be ex­tend­ed by a fur­ther three months.

“I don’t think a six-month pe­ri­od is war­rant­ed. I think we need to have long-term strate­gies rather than an SoE...We must think strate­gies and ini­tia­tives,” Nep­tune-Fi­garo stressed.

How­ev­er, fel­low crim­i­nol­o­gist Dar­ius Figuera has sought to high­light what he per­ceives as a wor­ry­ing trend dur­ing this SoE.

“What is hap­pen­ing now is we are start­ing to see the ap­pear­ance of kill events with two or more peo­ple and that is what we saw in 2020. When move­ments were shut­tered with COVID-19 reg­u­la­tions, the mur­der toll fell. But what hap­pened is the amount of mur­ders aris­ing from kill events with two or more vic­tims, in­creased to over 20%. So al­ready in Jan­u­ary, I am see­ing this rise and I am won­der­ing if we are head­ing for a re­peat of the 2020 phe­nom­e­non,” Figuera said.

He said the coun­try may be un­der a SoE but as­sas­sins still have a job to do.

“In spite of your hard polic­ing, you are not stop­ping the pro­fes­sion­als from tak­ing out the tar­gets they have been as­signed to. That is the re­al­i­ty. Be­cause the un­der­ly­ing rea­son is dri­ving the vi­o­lence to con­tin­ue,” Figuera pos­tu­lat­ed.

He said that while some crim­i­nal el­e­ments are un­der de­ten­tion or­ders, it may not be enough.

“What has hap­pened is that the prime tar­gets of the vi­o­lence are now in pro­tec­tive cus­tody. So when they come out, what hap­pens? The un­der­ly­ing cause re­mains. And the ques­tion aris­es, do you have pros­e­cutable ev­i­dence to charge them and place them in re­mand yard?”

When Guardian Me­dia spoke with mem­bers of the pub­lic yes­ter­day, they too had dif­fer­ing views on the SoE’s ef­fec­tive­ness.

A man who want­ed on­ly to be known as “One” said, “The SoE work­ing for the po­lice and sol­diers be­cause they are get­ting a le­gal chance to ad­van­tage peo­ple. This SoE made things worse. You feel­ing safe? I not feel­ing safe but I have to live and I have chil­dren to mind.”

But 22-year-old Nathaniel Gomes said he is feel­ing safer.

“Be­cause every­where I look, I see po­lice of­fi­cers and my mind tells me that the more po­lice of­fi­cers vis­i­ble, the less the like­li­hood of crime hap­pen­ing,” he said.

A 60-year-old woman, who asked not to be named, iden­ti­fied al­so said she felt safer.

“I am see­ing what the po­lice are do­ing and all the il­le­gal things they are find­ing. They are al­so lock­ing up per­pe­tra­tors, I don’t like that it still has mur­ders though,” she said.

But Op­po­si­tion MP and UNC “shad­ow” Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, Sad­dam Ho­sein called the SoE an ab­ject fail­ure.

“When I look at the sta­tis­tics up to this morn­ing, we had 23 or 24 mur­ders for the year al­ready so that shows we have al­most one mur­der per day while we are in a SoE.

“We can­not be im­pressed with these re­sults be­cause this should have been a sup­pres­sion of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty but clear­ly it has not shown any signs of do­ing that. So, it re­al­ly shows this is all but a PR ex­er­cise to show that they are do­ing some­thing with crime.”