Government has lost control of crime

LINUS F DIDIER

I HAVE SAT on this letter for months, waiting for a sign and praying that I would not have to send it. Unfortunately, I was given the sign with the mass murder of four people in Trinidad and the malicious wounding of seven people in Tobago.

The Government has lost control of the country where crime is concerned.

One of the five levels of Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, from a biological perspective, is that of safety and security. This means freedom from harm, fear or threat. In Trinidad and Tobago we currently do not have that freedom.

Let me tell Tobago something. If you do not get your act together and bring that current crime spree under control, you will quickly become a lost paradise. You are on that road right now. Take action to change your direction.

Even if the central government does not care, your destiny is in your hands.

Tobago is too small to have seven people injured in a drive-by shooting in Speyside and no one knows a thing. That is absolute madness.

In 2023, according to police service statistics, there were 14 murders in Tobago. In 2024, in less than five months, there were seven murders, including the body of a woman found over a precipice at Mount St George on Friday.

It hurts me to see Tobago in this condition because I clearly remember a time when one murder a year was cause for concern.

The current imbroglio between the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) and the Environmental Management Authority (EMA), over the destruction of leatherback turtle eggs on Turtle Beach, speaks to governance that has lost its way.

Turtle Beach is a world renowned turtle nesting site. Both the EMA and the THA know who destroyed the beach and the turtle eggs. It is not a secret. But we have political posturing about the EMA hunting the people who destroyed the eggs. Save it. Build your case and prosecute.

Let us look at Trinidad. Where do we start?

Four people were murdered and eight injured in a Powder Magazine, Cocorite attack. It is not the first time. In March, five people were murdered and three injured in a brazen daylight shooting at Harpe Place.

I saw a video of an armed robbery in a grocery in California in central where two little girls were victims.

When a father cannot take his two little daughters into a neighbourhood grocery without having to confront bandits with guns, the Government has lost control of the country.

Students of the Malick Secondary School had an altercation in which one of them called a relative for back-up. This resulted in gunmen, armed with high-powered rifles, showing up at the school.

It is extremely distressing to see so many small business people being murdered or their businesses being bombed or attacked, because they refuse to pay extortion taxes to bandits. There has been a significant rise in this type of crime.

What have we come to when anywhere you go you have to be on continuous alert?

Dr Rowley took umbrage at the Opposition's continuous reporting of "crime, crime, crime, crime." When you live in a bubble for the past nine years, with 24-hour security, it is very easy to lose touch with reality.

Rowley, crime matters to us "little people." It matters a lot.

Criminals have been emboldened by the political directorate turning its wrath and attention against legal firearm holders. It is as if the Government has sent a clear signal that it is okay to commit crimes with illegal firearms.

In 2017 I had suggested that laws be passed making any crime committed with a gun punishable with life in prison. Not 25 years and then you come out. Life! These laws must be so designed that crusading judges and magistrates must have no choice in their execution.

In September 2019, to its credit, the Government passed the Firearms (Amendment) Bill, Act #18 of 2019, which significantly increased the fines and sentences for gun crimes. Unfortunately, life imprisonment, section 9, subsection 2, only kicks in after the third gun offence.

For a first offence, the law prescribes, on summary conviction, a fine of $500,000 and imprisonment for ten years. For conviction on indictment, imprisonment for 20 years.

For a second offence, the law prescribes on indictment, imprisonment for 25 years.

For a third offence, the law prescribes, on indictment, life in prison.

In April 2023, a Sangre Grande man was fined $10,000 by a magistrate after he pleaded guilty to charges of firearm and ammunition possession.

In January 2022, a labourer was sentenced to two years hard labour for gun and ammunition possession.

In May 2022 a fisherman was sentenced to two years in jail for possession of a firearm and ammunition.

None of these fall in line with the law.

However, the judiciary has a Sentencing Handbook 2016 which gives an indication into the thinking of magistrates and judges when sentencing criminals.

If this handbook is not updated to reflect amendments to laws, like the Firearms (Amendment) Bill, Act #18 of 2019, we are clearly spinning top in mud.

Page 249 of the handbook states that the current maximum penalties for possession of firearms and/or ammunition is 15 years imprisonment.

Pages 251-252 give an example of a gun crime where the perpetrator was sentenced to one year and two months in prison because of mitigating factors such as pleading guilty and not acting alone. Additionally, the person had spent ten years and two months in prison before the case was settled, so that was deducted from his sentence.

There is always the discussion in the judiciary as to whether laws are oppressive and breach the Constitution by imposing cruel and unusual punishment where criminals are concerned.

However, when the criminals do their gun crimes the law does not view their actions as being cruel, oppressive and breaching the constitutional rights of their victims.

What do we have the law for, if the people who are supposed to carry it out do not?

As I am about to conclude this letter, comes word that a 66-year-old Piarco woman was beaten and set on fire during a home invasion by three men and a woman.

If those four people are ever caught and found guilty, they will most likely get a kiss on the lips from the judiciary.