Criminologist: Arima triple murder can hurt public confidence in SoE

CRIMINOLOGIST Dr Randy Seepersad said the Arima triple murder of January 22 can hurt public confidence in the effectiveness of TT's state of emergency (SoE).

He spoke to Newsday on January 24, after the nation was shocked by the execution of Mitchell "Mitchie" Francois, 30; his common-law wife Anicia James, 47; and her brother Ansel James, at their home at Dump Road, Heights of Guanapo, Arima on the night of February 22.

Newsday asked if the SoE had initially boosted the public's sense of security and secondly whether the triple murder had now undermined the public mood. Seepersad replied, "It will have impacted public confidence."

He said confidence was different to a fear of crime.

"The thing about confidence in the police is that it is very difficult to impact.

"What an SoE might quicker impact is people's level of fear of crime. People may feel a bit of a sense of relief."

He said the fear of crime could cause poor mental and physical heath, plus more effort towards protective behaviour such as people curtailing their activities.

"There will be some level of relief for the public in terms of their levels of fear of crime."

However, Seepersad said an SoE might not necessarily improve the general public's confidence in the police.

"I suspect you need deeper kinds of police engagement and stronger evidence of police success, to really push that level of confidence. Meaning: you need to see things like improved clearance rates and apprehension of criminals, with the public knowing these things and perhaps seeing these things are happening."

Seepersad also said a dent in police corruption could lift public faith in the police. However, he likened the SoE to a band-aid against crime and a temporary strategy. He said an SoE did not indicate the performance of the police had suddenly improved.

"So it (SoE) is not something that implies any substantive change in the performance of the police service, which is what will really bring on a change in the level of confidence in the police."

Newsday pressed as to whether the triple murder was likely to undermine confidence in the SoE and police.

Seepersad replied, "I think that unfortunately it probably would undermine both."

He said polling was very costly and had not been done on the issue.

"In the absence of any kind of comparative data, we could suspect there would be some kind of effect."

He said the last poll of police confidence was done in December 2023 by the Ministry of National Security.

"It is very, very difficult to systematically run these polls when incidents happen or at different key points in time, to really gauge how confidence in the police is changing and how specific events affect confidence in the police.

"But my guess is this will have a negative effect (referring to the triple murder's impact on public confidence in the police and the SoE.)"

Newsday asked if one could speculate that the police could recoup some public confidence if they solved the triple murder.

Seepersad said, "I would say it probably would.

"When you see high-profile things like this on the front page of the newspapers today, if the police are able to make some kind of headway in solving it, certainly I see positive effects as a result of that."

Police service DCP Curt Simon told Newsday the police did not want the Arima triple murder to undo public confidence in the SoE.

"I would not say that the 'triple' would have thrown off what it is we are doing.

"It would impact the people's fear – people's fear of crime in the society – and perhaps if people are fearful that may tend to impact their confidence in the policing."

Simon said the police were trying to reduce any loss of confidence.

"When we speak of what is actually happening with the figures, we have not been thrown off. But I think that perhaps some sort of fear would creep into people because they may have seen that there was some abating somewhat of the murders and now you see the 'triple.'

"Even though we are having them one-a-day basically, you will have seen some abating because the country has become so accustomed to two and three murders daily, so if we just get this glimpse of that (lowered murder rate)."

Simon said the recent news headline "First Triple" was telling.

"The people may get some sense of fear in terms of returning back to, but I don't forecast that – that we are returning to that.

"We had this incident and the TTPS (TT Police Service) are working relentlessly in dealing with it."