( Trinidad Guardian) 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 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.