Nip Tobago crime in the bud

CRIME IN Trinidad may well be spiralling – and that is a matter which we hope can be changed by the fact that, for the first time in years, there is now a substantive commissioner of police – but that situation should not be allowed to become par for the course in Tobago.

A single murder, wherever it takes place, is one murder too many.

However, considering worsening statistics and an increasingly disturbing outlook given ever more alarming intelligence assessments, we call on law enforcement authorities, including Erla Harewood-Christopher, to pay particular attention to nipping the crime situation in Tobago in the bud before it becomes accepted as part of the status quo.

The island was rocked by a brazen murder on Thursday. Given statistical trends, that murder is not likely to be the last. Last year, ten killings were recorded.

While such a figure might pale in comparison with what occurs in Trinidad, crime economist Anslem Richards hit the nail on the head when he noted, in response to the killing of Tobago House of Assembly employee Nigel Sandy in Plymouth, that the island of Tobago is so small its population will not be able to survive many more instances of violence.

“We don’t have the population depth to withstand the impact of gun violence in this society,” Mr Richards, who has experience in crime research and who has worked for the Citizen Security Programme, said. “Multiple relatives, families and friends would be hurt by this and what this means is that we have to close our ranks as Tobagonians and squeeze the illegal firearms out of our communities.”

The closing of ranks is definitely required, as is the interdiction of illegal guns.

But there are also signs these issues are linked to increasingly problematic social factors which have led to and allowed the flourishing of gangs within specific enclaves of the island.

Former head of the Tobago police, ACP William Nurse, last year warned about the proliferation of gangs and disclosed there is a concentration of criminality within specific parts of the island, with one area accounting for 70 per cent of criminals.

“Our intelligence suggests that Les Coteaux contains the largest percentage of Tobago’s most notorious criminals,” Mr Nurse said, saying gangs seem to operate in places where they may be unsuspected. He called for greater enforcement of laws and specific steps to find and to uproot them through intelligence.

All must be concerned by the fact that crime will damage more than just the island’s social fabric if it is allowed to spiral. It will destroy the tourism trade and damage the island’s cultural heritage for generations.

The criminals must be apprehended at all costs.