An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

As the coun­try con­tin­ues to grap­ple with ris­ing crime, crim­i­nol­o­gists and a for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al are say­ing that a State of Emer­gency (SoE) is not the an­swer.

Peo­ple from dif­fer­ent quar­ters have been call­ing for an SoE as there are sev­er­al killings dai­ly that have left cit­i­zens very un­easy. The mur­der rate up to yes­ter­day was 433.

In­stead, they are call­ing for bet­ter polic­ing to im­prove the crime de­tec­tion rate and for the au­thor­i­ties to fix the court sys­tem.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad, in an in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, said while the pub­lic might grav­i­tate to­wards an SoE, it does noth­ing what­so­ev­er to solve the un­der­ly­ing prob­lem. 

“It’s a stop­gap. It’s very sim­i­lar to, if you re­call, dur­ing COVID-19, we had tak­en re­stric­tions, and those re­stric­tions re­sult­ed in a re­duc­tion in a wide range of crimes. But it’s not a prac­ti­cal so­lu­tion, be­cause es­sen­tial­ly what you do is you lock peo­ple in their hous­es, right? But that’s not a so­lu­tion. It’s un­cre­ative. You know, it lacks cre­ativ­i­ty, and it’s just not enough. It’s al­most, I would say, an act of des­per­a­tion if you use a State of Emer­gency,” he ex­plained.

For­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, al­so agreed that an SoE is just a tem­po­rary mea­sure and would not be ef­fec­tive.

“It would not solve the prob­lem, and solv­ing the prob­lem means there must be a de­tec­tion of the peo­ple com­mit­ting the crime. The pub­lic and the po­ten­tial crim­i­nals have to know that if they com­mit the crime, they will get caught, and I think one of the ma­jor prob­lems fac­ing T&T is that the de­tec­tion rate of mur­ders is very low. If you have to have an ag­gres­sive crime-fight­ing pol­i­cy, you must be able to catch the per­pe­tra­tors,” Ma­haraj said.

He not­ed that the ma­jor de­ter­rent when he was in of­fice was catch­ing the crim­i­nals and pun­ish­ing them for the act. This, he be­lieves, needs to be a top pri­or­i­ty to help with the fight against crime.

An­oth­er crim­i­nol­o­gist, Dau­rius Figueira, said the re­peat­ed calls for an SoE are dri­ven by des­per­a­tion, but they can­not ad­dress the re­al­i­ty that is dri­ving the vi­o­lence, which is not an emer­gency.

“It is a so­ci­etal col­lapse caused by the fail­ure of the po­lit­i­cal sys­tem to in­te­grate all cit­i­zens in­to the so­cial or­der and to do what­ev­er is nec­es­sary to pro­tect pub­lic safe­ty.

“A SoE is used based on the ex­pec­ta­tion that the so­cial or­der is vi­able, healthy, and in har­mo­ny but is faced with an emer­gency that re­quires in­ter­ven­tion. T&T’s so­cial or­der is none of the above, and an SoE can­not re­turn our so­cial or­der to vi­a­bil­i­ty; that is the job of the po­lit­i­cal sys­tem,” he said.

“The col­lapse of this sys­tem is then in­di­cat­ed by the in­abil­i­ty of the politi­cians and the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus to now speak to us, as­sur­ing us that there is hope. Their dis­course to the pub­lic can­not even res­onate with the dai­ly re­al­i­ty of the graph­ic reck­less vi­o­lence that as­saults us and has many of us liv­ing in fear and para­noia,” Figueira added.

He said the TTPS nev­er speaks about transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime, how it im­pacts the so­cial or­der of T&T, and how they in­tend to po­lice this grave threat.

Seep­er­sad al­so said deal­ing with youths en­gag­ing in crime, the court, and prison are some of the key is­sues that need to be tack­led.

He ex­plained that the po­lice mur­der de­tec­tion rates are low as few­er per­pe­tra­tors are be­ing ap­pre­hend­ed. “You have to fig­ure out why that is hap­pen­ing. Does it have some­thing to do with peo­ple’s lack of trust in the po­lice, peo­ple’s un­will­ing­ness to re­port? Does it have to do with the in­ap­pro­pri­ate use of tech­nol­o­gy or in­tel­li­gence? There are many fac­tors that you would find that af­fect de­tec­tion rates. So you need to look at prop­er gap analy­sis of the po­lice ser­vice, to de­ter­mine what is hap­pen­ing and then put mea­sures in place to help with the de­tec­tion rate,” Seep­er­sad out­lined.

Weigh­ing in on the calls for a State of Emer­gency, ROOTS Foun­da­tion founder Mti­ma Sol­wazi does not be­lieve that it would work now as it was in­ef­fec­tive in 2015. 

“That might be more re­gres­sive than pro­gres­sive. I don’t think that will work.” How­ev­er, Sol­wazi is sug­gest­ing that a gun amnesty might help tack­le the crime sit­u­a­tion.

“We ask the gangs if they can bring in their guns. I don’t know what they could work out. We could see what best prac­tices work with our gun amnesty. Be­cause if they tell me to bring my gun, they shouldn’t lock up the gang mem­ber. But then when they bring in all the guns and they say you get 5,000 guns off the streets, let us see you all take a steam roller and then melt those guns. But if you just say the guns in the po­lice sta­tions, that’s not solv­ing the is­sue; it needs to be de­stroyed,” he said.

Sol­wazi called for the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion to put aside their dif­fer­ences and fight the crime bat­tle.

When con­tact­ed, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said the Op­po­si­tion has been help­ing the Gov­ern­ment with the pas­sage of laws, but the cri­sis is a lack of im­ple­men­ta­tion.