Gang problem spreading

IF gangs are a malignant cancer in Trinidad, the cancer has spread to Tobago. The failed treatment in one island cannot now be expected to work in another.

Farley Augustine last Thursday linked Tobago’s record murder toll to organised criminal activity.

“The gang culture is becoming nationalised,” he said. “There must be a strategy to apprehend and reform our youngsters before things get out of hand.”

The Chief Secretary is correct in his diagnosis, though perhaps wrong in his assessment of the timing of the onset of the disease.

Since last May, the patient was presenting symptoms: senior police officials were reporting the presence of at least 20 gangs in Tobago. Murders were rising. What we are this year seeing is evidence things are already “out of hand,” particularly for a tourist destination.

Evidently, gangs are doing what our political leaders are not. They are collaborating and operating in ways truly national in scope. Trinidad’s gang problem is now Tobago’s gang problem because these criminals, while they battle for localised status, are seemingly looking at a bigger, nationwide picture.

Tobago’s woes are another reminder, if we need one, that the crime problem requires a non-partisan effort. Just as the PNM and the UNC need to work together to tackle the situation in Trinidad, the central government and the Tobago House of Assembly must co-operate.

Mr Augustine, whose administration has been rocked by allegations of criminal wrongdoing and who has, in turn, fired back with counter allegations against Cabinet, a few weeks ago described his dysfunctional relationship with the Prime Minister as a work in progress. Crime is one area where both must put aside their differences for the sake of people in both islands.

Meanwhile, the operational response of law enforcement has not appeared particularly novel or inspired. The approach has seen the police and Defence Force team up. There have been joint patrols, roadblocks and “targeted operations,” all of which Trinidadians are familiar with. A team of Trinidad officers has been sent to Tobago to help target gang violence. But if gangs are a social issue, these strategies alone will only make a superficial dent.

Most of 2023’s gun-related murders in Tobago have taken place in places such as Bethel, Black Rock, Bon Accord, Crown Point, Golden Lane, Les Coteaux, Mount Pleasant, Plymouth, Scarborough and Signal Hill. This spread corresponds with the flatter, more populous, built-up areas surrounding ports, away from higher topographies.

However, the spread may be, equally, a sign of something indiscriminate. It remains to be seen whether it will grow ever wider, fuelled by the socio-economic factors that eventually dissolved notions of hotspots in Trinidad after the initial eruptions of the 2000s.

For now, it is too late to prevent metastasis. But it is not too late to learn, in both islands, from each other’s mistakes.