COP backs SOE but proposes other anti crime measures

The Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) has ex­pressed sup­port for the Gov­ern­ment’s de­c­la­ra­tion of a State of Emer­gency, say­ing the mea­sure al­lows broad­er crime re­duc­tion strate­gies to take root while pro­tect­ing law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.

In a me­dia re­lease is­sued to­day, the par­ty said crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go has reached a lev­el that re­quires de­ci­sive and sys­temic in­ter­ven­tion. It ar­gued that while long-term so­lu­tions must ad­dress the root caus­es of crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, sev­er­al short-term ac­tions can pro­duce re­sults in the im­me­di­ate to medi­um term.

The frame­work, pre­sent­ed by Im­ran Ali, out­lines ten short-term mea­sures aimed at restor­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence, strength­en­ing law en­force­ment ac­count­abil­i­ty, mod­ernising sur­veil­lance sys­tems, clos­ing leg­isla­tive loop­holes and ad­dress­ing weak­ness­es in bor­der se­cu­ri­ty and the jus­tice sys­tem.

Among the pro­pos­als is the manda­to­ry use of body-worn cam­eras for po­lice of­fi­cers who rou­tine­ly in­ter­act with the pub­lic. The par­ty said cam­eras would cre­ate a trans­par­ent and ver­i­fi­able record of in­ter­ac­tions be­tween po­lice and civil­ians. It rec­om­mend­ed manda­to­ry ac­ti­va­tion dur­ing ar­rests, search­es, traf­fic stops and oth­er pub­lic en­gage­ments, with footage stored in a se­cure cen­tralised ev­i­dence man­age­ment sys­tem. The COP said the mea­sure would re­duce al­le­ga­tions of po­lice mis­con­duct, pro­tect of­fi­cers from false ac­cu­sa­tions and strength­en ev­i­den­tiary sup­port for crim­i­nal pros­e­cu­tions.

The par­ty al­so called for the es­tab­lish­ment of an in­de­pen­dent In­ter­nal Af­fairs Unit with­in the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty. It pro­posed staffing the unit with re­tired for­eign law-en­force­ment pro­fes­sion­als who have no pre­vi­ous ties to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice. The COP ar­gued that in­de­pen­dent in­ves­ti­ga­tors would strength­en over­sight, re­duce in­sti­tu­tion­al in­flu­ence and im­prove pub­lic con­fi­dence in ac­count­abil­i­ty mech­a­nisms.

An­oth­er pro­pos­al calls for a lim­it­ed-time na­tion­al gun amnesty al­low­ing in­di­vid­u­als to sur­ren­der il­le­gal firearms and am­mu­ni­tion with­out pros­e­cu­tion. Af­ter the amnesty pe­ri­od, the par­ty rec­om­mends amend­ments to the Firearms Act to in­crease manda­to­ry min­i­mum sen­tences for il­le­gal firearm pos­ses­sion and im­pose stronger penal­ties for traf­fick­ing and re­peat of­fences.

The frame­work al­so in­cludes a re­quest for the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go to reg­u­late or re­strict the broad­cast of mu­sic and mu­sic videos that glo­ri­fy gun vi­o­lence, gang cul­ture and crim­i­nal be­hav­iour on ra­dio and tele­vi­sion. The par­ty said such con­tent con­tributes to the nor­mal­i­sa­tion of vi­o­lence and neg­a­tive­ly in­flu­ences young au­di­ences.

The COP al­so pro­posed the de­ploy­ment of a na­tion­wide net­work of 20,000 so­lar-pow­ered se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras equipped with fa­cial recog­ni­tion and au­to­mat­ic li­cence plate recog­ni­tion tech­nol­o­gy. The cam­eras would op­er­ate in­de­pen­dent­ly us­ing so­lar pow­er and feed live da­ta to po­lice mon­i­tor­ing cen­tres. The par­ty rec­om­mend­ed in­stalling ap­prox­i­mate­ly 500 cam­eras in each par­lia­men­tary con­stituen­cy, with place­ment guid­ed by crime da­ta from the po­lice.

Ad­di­tion­al rec­om­men­da­tions in­clude a na­tion­al ve­hi­cle trans­fer amnesty last­ing six months to reg­u­larise over­due own­er­ship trans­fers, fol­lowed by the in­tro­duc­tion of RFID-en­abled li­cence plates dis­trib­uted sole­ly through the Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty. The par­ty said the sys­tem would im­prove ve­hi­cle own­er­ship records and as­sist in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­volv­ing stolen ve­hi­cles.

The frame­work fur­ther pro­pos­es the es­tab­lish­ment of a Night Court ded­i­cat­ed to traf­fic mat­ters to re­duce the back­log in the mag­is­trates’ courts. The COP said the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, in which cit­i­zens con­test­ing traf­fic tick­ets re­ceive court dates sev­er­al years away, un­der­mines the ef­fi­cien­cy of the jus­tice sys­tem.

Oth­er mea­sures in­clude the cre­ation of SafeSpot ex­change zones at po­lice sta­tions where cit­i­zens can safe­ly com­plete trans­ac­tions arranged through on­line mar­ket­places, the de­ploy­ment of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment to pa­trol key coastal ar­eas in co­or­di­na­tion with the Coast Guard to de­ter smug­gling, and re­forms to con­tain­er in­spec­tion pro­ce­dures at ports.

The par­ty rec­om­mend­ed end­ing the prac­tice of al­low­ing con­tain­ers to be in­spect­ed off­site by so-called low-risk traders and in­creas­ing the per­cent­age of con­tain­ers scanned at port fa­cil­i­ties. It al­so pro­posed rig­or­ous back­ground checks, fi­nan­cial dis­clo­sure screen­ing and vol­un­tary bi-an­nu­al poly­graph test­ing for per­son­nel with­in tran­sit shed op­er­a­tor units.

The COP said the com­bined mea­sures would strength­en na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, dis­rupt traf­fick­ing routes, mod­ernise polic­ing and re­build pub­lic trust in the coun­try’s crime-fight­ing in­sti­tu­tions.