JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

De­fence at­tor­ney Steven Maw­er is ques­tion­ing why his teenage client was is­sued a Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) in­stead of be­ing charged with pos­ses­sion of a firearm found at a house he and oth­ers were at two weeks ago.

Maw­er said his 16-year-old client, who was held on March 7, spent nine days at the Mara­cas St Joseph Po­lice Sta­tion with­out be­ing ques­tioned about the firearm or any al­leged gang in­volve­ment, de­spite claims in the PDO.

The on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE) was de­clared by the Gov­ern­ment to ad­dress ris­ing gang ac­tiv­i­ties. At a me­dia brief­ing last Fri­day, Gold Com­man­der DCP Suzette Mar­tin said 39 peo­ple had been held un­der PDOs, with 16 ap­proved at the time. To date, none of these PDOs have been gazetted.

Ac­cord­ing to the PDO, the teen from Tu­na­puna is al­leged­ly a shoot­er with the Ras­ta City gang, plot­ting with oth­ers to ex­pand ter­ri­to­ry through pub­lic shoot­ings, mur­ders, and traf­fick­ing firearms, am­mu­ni­tion, and nar­cotics. The PDO, signed by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der on March 16, or­ders that the teen be held at the Youth Train­ing and Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre (YTRC), Gold­en Grove, Arou­ca.

The PDO states: “He and oth­ers plan to im­mi­nent­ly car­ry out re­tal­ia­to­ry shoot­ings against ri­val gangs in pub­lic spaces us­ing high-pow­ered firearms and high-ve­loc­i­ty rounds. His de­ten­tion is nec­es­sary to dis­rupt these plans and to pre­vent fur­ther acts that pose a clear and present threat to pub­lic safe­ty.”

Maw­er ar­gued that the de­ten­tion is not in the child’s best in­ter­est, plac­ing him in an en­vi­ron­ment that could wors­en his de­vel­op­ment. He sug­gest­ed al­ter­na­tives to “go­ing nu­clear” by send­ing the teen to a se­cure fa­cil­i­ty.

“I don’t think you can find any rep­utable child de­vel­op­ment spe­cial­ist who would say prison is ap­pro­pri­ate for a child who has not been charged with a crim­i­nal of­fence,” Maw­er said.

He added that con­cerns about the teen’s pres­ence at the house with a gun can be ad­dressed through due process, and de­ten­tion is not the so­lu­tion.

“Where is the pro­tec­tion of the state in this mat­ter? There is no pro­vi­sion for so­cial ser­vices, pro­ba­tion ser­vices, child psy­chol­o­gy, or oth­er sup­port that the chil­dren’s court is de­signed to pro­vide. A PDO just sends the child straight to de­ten­tion with no con­sid­er­a­tion for their wel­fare, safe­ty, or de­vel­op­ment,” Maw­er said.

He al­so re­vealed that a mi­nor de­tained un­der the last SoE at the YTRC was kept in soli­tary con­fine­ment for the du­ra­tion of their stay.

“This is the type of treat­ment I want to avoid for this child. Soli­tary con­fine­ment is in­ter­na­tion­al­ly recog­nised as a puni­tive mea­sure for ill be­hav­iour—not for some­one who has not been charged with a crim­i­nal of­fence. These chil­dren can­not at­tend school, and their ba­sic rights are be­ing com­pro­mised,” he added.

Au­thor­i­ties have clar­i­fied that de­tainees un­der the SoE are not housed with con­vict­ed per­sons or re­mand­ed in­mates.