33 students arrested in schools since September

Since of­fi­cers of the School-Ori­ent­ed Polic­ing Unit were as­signed to var­i­ous schools across Trinidad and To­ba­go last Sep­tem­ber, 33 stu­dents have been ar­rest­ed for var­i­ous of­fences, po­lice re­port­ed.

ACP Bri­an Sood­een of the Spe­cialised Sup­port Unit re­vealed the da­ta dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the po­lice head­quar­ters on Sackville Street, Port of Spain, this af­ter­noon. He con­firmed the stu­dents were ar­rest­ed for of­fences in­clud­ing pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na, pos­ses­sion of a weapon, sex­u­al mis­con­duct, as­sault on a prin­ci­pal, and re­sist­ing ar­rest.

The da­ta, he said, cov­ers the pe­ri­od from Sep­tem­ber 2025 to Jan­u­ary 28, 2026.

He not­ed: “The key ob­ser­va­tions: va­p­ing is one of the most com­mon in­frac­tions across schools, in­di­cat­ing a grow­ing trend among stu­dents that re­quires some health in­ter­ven­tion. Fights and dis­or­der­ly con­duct re­main preva­lent, show­ing the need for con­flict res­o­lu­tion work­shops and peer me­di­a­tion pro­grammes. Pos­ses­sion of weapons and nar­cotics—mar­i­jua­na most preva­lent—though few­er com­pared to the last term, are se­ri­ous and high­light the im­por­tance of con­tin­ued po­lice pres­ence and ran­dom checks. Sex­u­al mis­con­duct cas­es, while lim­it­ed, de­mand im­me­di­ate re­fer­ral to spe­cialised units and coun­selling sup­port.”

When asked if more schools should have of­fi­cers as­signed or if de­ploy­ments should in­crease at spe­cif­ic schools, Sood­een said such de­ci­sions would be made by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion where nec­es­sary.