No accountability in Trinidad and Tobago

Debbie Jacob

Accountability is a concept that needs improvement in this country, but that could change once enough people get fed up, speak out and demand it. There’s a breaking point where everything spirals out of control and action must be taken.

Performance should trump empty rhetoric, and there should be a healthy state of fear that wrongdoing in public office will result in some tangible consequences – like not promoting police or prison officers, or transferring them and their problems to other stations, after they have been suspended for issues that should have cost them their jobs. No leader in the public service or private sector who lies, demoralises employees and misuses power should be promoted and left unaccountable for reprehensible actions, which we are accustomed to seeing in this country.

Look at the extremes to which the US is going to ensure accountability. Former president Donald Trump is on trial for possibly rigging the presidential election. Two other cases with parents and a school administrator highlight how the US now deals with accountability.

Recently, in the state of Virginia, an assistant principal was charged with eight counts of felony child abuse with disregard for life after a six-year-old boy shot his first-grade teacher on January 6, 2023. That case highlights another problem we should note: the growing number of younger children who get their hands on guns.

But should school administrators be held accountable for violence? Is that an extreme reaction, if teachers repeatedly report problems with violent students and administrators take no action?

The precedent was set in the US when a grand jury said the assistant principal committed "a wilful act or omission in the care of such students that was so gross, wanton, and culpable as to show a reckless disregard for human life."

Each of the charges, all class 6 felonies in the US, carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and administrators face a US$40 million civil negligence lawsuit. In this case, the teacher made repeated reports about the six-year-old, and on that particular day she said the child seemed “particularly off and more violent than usual.”

The student had threatened another child and stared down a security officer. Other teachers reported he had a gun in his backpack, and the teacher told administrators this too. The teacher said her complaints were ignored. She got shot in the chest and hands.

Imagine teachers and students going to work every day living in fear of violent students while administrators ignore complaints because no one is held accountable for students’ behaviour in school.

Then there’s the case of James and Jennifer Crumbley, parents of a school shooter who recently got a sentence of ten-15 years in prison. Those parents had bought a gun as their troubled 15-year-old son Ethan Crumbley’s Christmas present and practised shooting with him on a shooting range.

Ethan eventually took the gun to school and killed four students. He was charged with 24 felony counts, including first-degree murder, but the local prosecutor also decided to prosecute his parents.

In this case, school administrators had done their job. Before the shooting, they noted Ethan’s erratic behaviour, called his parents into the school and asked them to take him home. The parents left him there knowing he was a troubled teen with a gun they bought for him. Further investigations showed Ethan had asked his parents for medical intervention. He felt he needed therapy, asked his parents to find it for him and his father reportedly told him to just “suck it up.”

Ethan Crumbley was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

The question is, how far do we have to go as a society where violence and crime are out of control and a culture of unaccountability has been established before we seek solutions? Note too that in the US, it is middle and upper-class students with guns involved in school shootings. Here, we find guns in the hands of poor children.

How do we deal with that socio-economic difference when it comes to addressing violence and accountability?

At the very least, we should tie job security to accountability. We must do something. Accountability in government and the workplace is important because it is a foundation for safety, trust, productivity and emotional well-being.

If we don’t decide to start somewhere, we risk reaching a point of no return where every institution that should help and support us can do little more than instil disappointment, fear or cynicism in all of us.