Alexander says new home invasion law working

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

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Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der says sev­en months af­ter be­ing pro­claimed, the home in­va­sion leg­is­la­tion is al­ready hav­ing an im­pact in de­ter­ring vi­o­lent break-ins, cit­ing mul­ti­ple ar­rests, the de­ten­tion of known of­fend­ers and an in­crease in law­ful firearm ap­pli­ca­tions since it came in­to force late last year.

But the Op­po­si­tion has dis­missed those claims, ar­gu­ing the leg­is­la­tion has failed to de­liv­er on Gov­ern­ment’s promis­es and that home in­va­sions re­main a per­sis­tent threat to cit­i­zens.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions yes­ter­day, Alexan­der de­fend­ed the law, de­scrib­ing it as an im­por­tant tool in pro­tect­ing law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.

“The home in­va­sion law is prov­ing to be very ef­fec­tive in the role it’s play­ing in the pro­tec­tion of our cit­i­zens,” Alexan­der said.

He re­vealed that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has es­tab­lished a ded­i­cat­ed team to in­ves­ti­gate home in­va­sion of­fences, re­sult­ing in sev­er­al ar­rests and charges across the coun­try.

“As home in­va­sion is cur­rent­ly be­ing ad­dressed by the law en­force­ment agen­cies and a team ded­i­cat­ed to treat­ing with home in­va­sion, the TTPS has made sev­er­al ar­rests and per­sons have been charged all over Trinidad and To­ba­go and sev­er­al known of­fend­ers have been de­tained and pre­vent­ed from car­ry­ing out the act of home in­va­sion as they were placed on PDOs,” he said.

The Home In­va­sion (Self-De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Act, No. 11 of 2025, came in­to ef­fect last De­cem­ber, af­ter be­ing passed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on No­vem­ber 26 and ap­proved by the Sen­ate on De­cem­ber 5 with­out amend­ment. The leg­is­la­tion cre­at­ed the stand­alone of­fence of home in­va­sion, car­ry­ing penal­ties of up to 25 years’ im­pris­on­ment or a $750,000 fine up­on con­vic­tion.

It al­so re­moved the le­gal du­ty for vic­tims to re­treat when con­front­ed in their homes, af­firm­ing the right of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens to use rea­son­able force, in­clud­ing dead­ly force where nec­es­sary, in de­fence of them­selves, their fam­i­lies and their prop­er­ty.

Alexan­der said the leg­is­la­tion has al­so em­pow­ered law en­force­ment, while send­ing a strong mes­sage to vi­o­lent of­fend­ers.

“Per­sons have died dur­ing home in­va­sion crimes at the hands of the po­lice and FUL hold­ers. Those peo­ple who we call un­in­vit­ed pests, who left their home to go in­to some law-abid­ing cit­i­zen’s home to rob, rape, steal, beat and mur­der, and by do­ing this they would have in­vit­ed their own deaths,” Alexan­der said.

He said many home in­va­sions in­volve heav­i­ly armed groups tar­get­ing fam­i­lies.

“Whilst some cit­i­zens are work­ing and man­ag­ing to feed their fam­i­lies, oth­ers just want to take away what oth­ers work hard for, many times at gun­point with five or six men armed car­ry­ing out these home in­va­sions.”

He con­tend­ed that vi­o­lent home in­vaders should ex­pect lit­tle sym­pa­thy if they are killed while com­mit­ting such crimes.

He al­so con­firmed that au­thor­i­ties have ob­served an in­crease in ap­pli­ca­tions for Firearm User Li­cences (FULs) since the law’s in­tro­duc­tion but was un­able to in­di­cate the lat­est fig­ures.

While stress­ing that ap­pli­cants must still sat­is­fy strict le­gal re­quire­ments, he said Gov­ern­ment be­lieves qual­i­fied cit­i­zens should be able to pro­tect them­selves.

“This Gov­ern­ment be­lieves that once a law-abid­ing cit­i­zen has qual­i­fied, then he or she must be giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­fend them­selves and their fam­i­lies.”

He al­so urged cit­i­zens to take greater re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for se­cur­ing their homes.

“Your home is your cas­tle and you must pro­tect it and your fam­i­lies with­in by any law­ful means nec­es­sary. The law pro­vides for it.”

How­ev­er, for­mer Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter and cur­rent Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les ar­gued that the leg­is­la­tion has not pro­duced the re­sults promised by Gov­ern­ment.

“The Home In­va­sion Leg­is­la­tion has proven yet again, like the SoE, that the UNC has lied and mis­led this coun­try by sell­ing this ini­tia­tive as a sil­ver bul­let so­lu­tion to the in­tractable is­sue of crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty.”

Gon­za­les con­tend­ed that Gov­ern­ment false­ly cre­at­ed the im­pres­sion that every cit­i­zen would be able to arm them­selves against crim­i­nals.

“They lied and sold the idea that every cit­i­zen will have ac­cess to firearms to shoot and kill crim­i­nals that en­ter up­on their prop­er­ties. Sev­en months af­ter the pas­sage of the bill, home in­va­sions con­tin­ue un­abat­ed and cit­i­zens con­tin­ue to live in pro­found fear. There has been lit­tle to no pros­e­cu­tions of home in­vaders. Cit­i­zens re­main help­less and the Gov­ern­ment looks every day to cre­ate a dis­trac­tion from their fail­ure.”

Gon­za­les ar­gued that mean­ing­ful re­duc­tions in crime will on­ly come through im­proved polic­ing and ju­di­cial re­form.

“Noth­ing will sub­sti­tute in­tel­li­gence-led polic­ing that leads to the ar­rest and pros­e­cu­tion of of­fend­ers. Noth­ing will sub­sti­tute for ad­dress­ing the prob­lems in our ju­di­cial sys­tem that pre­vent ex­pe­di­tious hear­ing and de­ter­mi­na­tion of cas­es,” he said.

He al­so ac­cused Gov­ern­ment of fail­ing to de­liv­er on one of its key crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tives.

The leg­is­la­tion was in­tro­duced amid grow­ing pub­lic con­cern over vi­o­lent home in­va­sions, many of which have in­volved armed gangs ter­ror­is­ing fam­i­lies in their homes. Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials ar­gued dur­ing par­lia­men­tary de­bate that the law would strength­en pro­tec­tions for vic­tims while im­pos­ing tougher penal­ties on of­fend­ers, while the Op­po­si­tion has con­sis­tent­ly main­tained that leg­is­la­tion alone can­not solve the coun­try’s crime cri­sis with­out stronger in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing, more ef­fec­tive polic­ing and a more ef­fi­cient crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem.