1 week Ago
In response to seven murders over a 24-hour period last week, the usual suspects followed their usual playbook. They met with one another, voiced some platitudes, and called a news conference where they promised to win the battle against criminals. The only difference this time was that Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, perhaps wisely or perhaps just fed up, didn’t take to Facebook to express his outrage and threaten the perpetrators.
Also, for once the most ludicrous statement didn’t come from National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds, although he made a worthy attempt by promising “we will be bringing the fight against crime and criminality to the front”. It was Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Junior Benjamin who copped the absurdity award by telling reporters, “We are totally in control of the crime situation.” With the murder toll now over 430 and counting, home invasions rampant, and extortion on the rise, what would it take for DCP Benjamin to admit the criminals are the only ones in control? However, it is what these officials do not say that reveals their lack of resolve.
A 2024 report on Caribbean gangs from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) notes: “Public contracts are widely recognised to feed organised crime.” This is not a new revelation. As far back as 2009, a study from the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey observed that Unemployment Relief Programme (URP) contracts “are contested among the gangs themselves.
..Police say that over 100 murders since 2002 have been of URP supervisors, foremen, contractors, and workers”.
In the same vein, the 2013 report Youth at Risk, chaired by the late Selwyn Ryan, warned: “The URP in its many manifestations (DEWD, SWP) was assumed to be the ‘haven’ of the gang and turf war problem.” For all their talk about stopping crime, no politician has raised this as an urgent matter of public importance. After all, URP and State contracts are vote-catching tools, and it seems that both the PNM and the UNC prefer to risk citizens’ lives rather than their electoral chances.
Yet, Commissioner Christopher on Friday revealed that 55% of murders are either gang- or drug-related. If, therefore, gangs could be stamped out, Trinidad and Tobago’s homicide rate would drop from its present 49 per 100,000 to 24 per 100,000. Nor is this an impossible task.
After all, it was not until 2001 that gang murders first came on the statistical radar, when they accounted for 11 homicides out of 151. The UNODC report notes that apart from State funding, gangs make their money by selling drugs, trafficking in firearms, human smuggling, contract killing, lottery scams, extortion, and racketeering. These are the crimes that the police (and politicians) will have to prioritise to take back control from the gangs.
Accomplishing this is not only a matter of allocating resources intelligently, but also implementing policy measures that will give both the security forces and ordinary citizens the power to fight back. Instead, the people in charge seem to believe they can conquer crime with clichés..
