Kamla, Rowley in 'crime talks'

As the population continues to be furious and frightened over the lack of concrete action against the country’s serious crime situation, two very notable but different “crime talks” were held last week. In addition, a productive civil-society crime summit was also held at Cipriani College of Labour and Co-operative Studies.

Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar held her second jazzed-up public “crime talks” last Monday with an impressive, overflowing crowd at San Fernando’s Naparima College auditorium. Everyone, panellists and audience, similar to her previous session at St Joseph’s La Joya Complex, seemed deadly serious about “the state of serious crime.” UNC producers Peter Kanhai and Jearlean John did a good job.

Last week, too, way up in cold Washington, the PM was holding high-profile “crime and security talks” with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, CIA director William Burns, and other top-level security bureaucrats. Ministers Stuart Young, Amery Browne and Hassel Bacchus accompanied him. (National Security Minister Fitzgerald Hinds was missing. Other issues discussed with them and US Vice President Kamala Harris were energy, trade, etc. Police vetted units too?)

The worried population here continues to ask: when will people begin to feel safe, and when will more criminals be caught and convicted. Will Dr Rowley’s well-published Washington “crime talks” give hope? What will be Ms Persad-Bissessar’s popular “crime talks” proposals? The population anxiously awaits.

Dr Rowley returns home to noisy episodes of statistically revealed police incompetence, very low public confidence in the police and police commissioner, an indisciplined police service, and mismanaged staff promotions – all such operational and administrative deficiencies exposed at two sittings by Parliament's Joint Select Committee (JSC) on Crime and Security.

Now, given that US assistance in whatever form, will depend on the capability, integrity and leadership of our own police service for sustainable effectiveness, it seems that Dr Rowley, Mr Hinds and the government will have to do a lot of repairs and in-house preparation – especially since the US assistance will focus on external intelligence, firearms trafficking, border control and cyber security, etc.

New wine cannot thrive in old bottles. The recent report of “corruption and mismanagement” in the externally funded and police-managed Grace anti-gang project adds to the concerns.

I repeat, unless we restructure the police service and upgrade entry qualifications for recruits as career professionals, police disloyalty, indiscipline and corruption, as revealed by Commissioner Erla Harewood-Christopher from Independent Senator Paul Richards’s questions, will get worse.

What do Dr Rowley and Ms Persad-Bissessar have to say about this? About the policies and action required? What do the PNM and UNC have to say about a police inspectorate? About seriously reviewing the PSC? If nothing, the public should judge.

Or is it the same childish behaviour that, if the PNM did it, the UNC would not accept it, and vice versa – wasting resources and opportunity? Is it going to continue being “blame Erla, blame Erla" and counting murders?

Certainly, the CoP has to share the blame. She is constitutionally empowered to deal with police indiscipline, management, etc. But she has been placed in an aged, tangled web of police incompetence and indiscipline. The Police Service Commission (PSC) must say something now.

These endemic problems will multiply if and when under-trained estate constables are arbitrarily brought into the police service. As politically popular as this may be, this is not just a matter of “filling” vacancies. How many of the hundreds of young men and women who recently lined up to be police officers really want to be career professionals, or are they just “looking for work”?

Ms Persad-Bissessar’s San Fernando “town hall meeting” was more than “collecting anti-crime proposals.” There were well-published educational presentations, with seasoned, qualified agriculturist Donny Rogers, head of a faction of the Hunters and Rescue Team Shamshudeen Ayube and clinical psychologist Valini Pundit. OWTU president Ancel Roget sat quietly.

The indomitable retired Snr Supt Johnny Abraham, strongly supporting the UNC leader, declared: “Nobody is going to tell me to shut up.” (Applause.) After he had criticised CoP Harewood-Christopher for “lack of leadership” and “appointment by friendship,” an upset Dr Rowley quickly rebuked him: “If I were him, I would shut up.”

While the PNM and UNC crime talks occupied public attention, a group of well-intentioned civic leaders – Movement for Social Justice leader David Abdulah, People’s Roundtable artist Rubadiri Victor, OWTU chief education officer and JTUM general secretary Ozzie Warwick, Scrap Iron Dealers' Association Allan Ferguson, chair of JTUM Women Sati Gajadhar-Innis, Guave Road Farmers Association's Joseph Richardson – held a spirited and very productive civil-society crime summit last week. Is something big building up towards the elections?