No mercy for criminals

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is warn­ing crim­i­nals that her Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to take “harsh and bru­tal mea­sures” against those who ter­rorise law-abid­ing cit­i­zens, even as the State of Emer­gency (SoE) ap­proach­es its Sep­tem­ber 17 end date.

In a Face­book post yes­ter­day, the Prime Min­is­ter de­clared that the six-month SoE had been “high­ly suc­cess­ful”, re­port­ing that 5,802 peo­ple had been ar­rest­ed, with 3,552 charged—a charge rate of 61.2 per cent.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the wider ac­tions of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices had re­sult­ed in crime de­creas­ing across all po­lice di­vi­sions, while the pri­ma­ry threat that prompt­ed the emer­gency mea­sures was be­ing ad­dressed.

“Crim­i­nals, their sup­port­ers and their fam­i­lies must un­der­stand that if they con­tin­ue ter­ror­is­ing law-abid­ing cit­i­zens, my Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to take harsh and bru­tal mea­sures against them,” she de­clared.

“Ne­go­ti­at­ing with or pla­cat­ing crim­i­nals on­ly em­bold­ens them to con­tin­ue their crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.”

The Prime Min­is­ter added that the end of the SoE would not mean an end to the Gov­ern­ment’s tough ap­proach to crime.

“De­spite the end of the SoE, I re­mind you all that the cells at Teteron and MSP await you if your crim­i­nal be­hav­iour con­tin­ues.”

Ar­rests and charges

In what she de­scribed as a move to­wards trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she had de­cid­ed, on the ad­vice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, to de­clas­si­fy and re­lease a re­port de­tail­ing the op­er­a­tional re­sults of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices dur­ing the SoE.

The fig­ures, record­ed as at Day 191, show that 5,802 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed, with 3,552 charged.

The re­port breaks down the charges in­to three broad cat­e­gories: se­ri­ous re­port­ed crimes, mi­nor crimes and mi­nor of­fences.

Se­ri­ous re­port­ed crimes ac­count­ed for 2,154 per­sons charged, while the mi­nor-crime cat­e­go­ry record­ed 816. A fur­ther 582 peo­ple were charged for mi­nor of­fences.

The fig­ures rep­re­sent the num­ber of per­sons charged, rather than the num­ber of in­di­vid­ual crim­i­nal in­ci­dents.

A to­tal of 801 Pre­ven­ta­tive De­ten­tion Or­der (PDO) ap­pli­ca­tions were sub­mit­ted, of which 702 were ap­proved. A to­tal of 574 PDOs were ex­e­cut­ed.

Of those de­tained un­der PDOs, 240 have since been for­mal­ly charged, while in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­main on­go­ing in­to the re­main­ing cas­es.

Among the se­ri­ous re­port­ed crimes, pos­ses­sion of firearms and am­mu­ni­tion ac­count­ed for the high­est num­ber of charges, with 558 per­sons charged.

The re­port al­so record­ed 246 per­sons charged with rob­bery, 238 for gen­er­al lar­ce­ny, 225 for break­ing of­fences and 214 for pos­ses­sion of nar­cotics for traf­fick­ing.

Oth­er se­ri­ous-crime charges in­clud­ed 140 for fraud of­fences, 135 for oth­er se­ri­ous crimes, 118 for sex­u­al of­fences, 69 for wound­ing or shoot­ing and 66 for home in­va­sion.

The re­main­ing cat­e­gories were:

Mur­der — 46 per­sons charged.

Kid­nap­ping — 41.

Lar­ce­ny of a mo­tor ve­hi­cle — 48.

Lar­ce­ny of a dwelling house — five.

Se­ri­ous in­de­cen­cy — five.

The re­port lists a to­tal of 2,154 per­sons charged for se­ri­ous re­port­ed crimes.

The re­port al­so pro­vides de­tails of charges for mi­nor crimes, in­clud­ing 494 per­sons charged with pos­ses­sion of nar­cotics, 82 for oth­er mi­nor crimes, 79 for pos­ses­sion of ap­pa­ra­tus and 38 for mi­nor lar­ce­ny.

There were al­so 13 per­sons charged with un­law­ful pos­ses­sion, ten for prae­di­al lar­ce­ny, eight for pos­ses­sion of house­break­ing im­ple­ments and one for mi­nor lar­ce­ny of a dwelling house.

The mi­nor-crime ta­ble records a to­tal of 816 per­sons charged.

Un­der the sep­a­rate mi­nor-of­fences cat­e­go­ry, breach of the peace ac­count­ed for the high­est num­ber of charges, with 129 per­sons charged.

As­sault on po­lice ac­count­ed for 115, while 54 per­sons were charged with as­sault and bat­tery or threats, and 39 for be­ing armed with a weapon.

The re­port al­so records 23 per­sons charged with gam­bling or bet­ting, four for ma­li­cious dam­age and two for sleep­ing or loi­ter­ing. These cat­e­gories, along with the re­main­ing mi­nor-of­fence en­tries, ac­count for the to­tal of 582 per­sons charged.

Da­ta com­piled by the Crime and Prob­lem Analy­sis Branch show that to­tal in­ci­dents oc­cur­ring at dwelling hous­es fell from 535 in 2024 to 307 in 2025, a 42.6 per cent re­duc­tion, with 238 in­ci­dents record­ed year-to-date in 2026.

A to­tal of 66 in­di­vid­u­als were specif­i­cal­ly charged with home in­va­sion un­der SoE 3 mea­sures.

PM says ‘two-tiered jus­tice sys­tem’ must end

Per­sad-Bisses­sar used her as­sess­ment of the SoE to crit­i­cise what she de­scribed as a long­stand­ing two-tiered jus­tice sys­tem, ar­gu­ing that some in­di­vid­u­als had been able to avoid con­se­quences be­cause of their wealth or po­lit­i­cal con­nec­tions.

“Over the last three decades, our coun­try went from a place of peace to a law­less dump be­cause some cit­i­zens be­lieve that there are no con­se­quences for bad be­hav­iour,” she said.

She blamed this on “a two-tiered jus­tice sys­tem where the av­er­age cit­i­zen was sub­ject­ed to the heavy hand of the law, while the eat-a-food fake elite and po­lit­i­cal­ly con­nect­ed re­ceived spe­cial priv­i­leges and treat­ment.”

The Prime Min­is­ter said her ad­min­is­tra­tion was work­ing to end that sit­u­a­tion and en­sure that all cit­i­zens were held per­son­al­ly re­spon­si­ble for their ac­tions.

“My Gov­ern­ment is work­ing with for­eign law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties and lo­cal law en­force­ment to en­sure that the lo­cal drug mafia and those who be­lieve they are un­touch­able be­cause of their ill-got­ten wealth will be pros­e­cut­ed in the same man­ner as any oth­er cit­i­zen.”

She specif­i­cal­ly ref­er­enced gangs in West­moor­ings, St Clair and Fed­er­a­tion Park, ac­cus­ing them of flood­ing the coun­try with il­le­gal drugs and firearms.

“The filthy, greedy West­moor­ings, St Clair and Fed­er­a­tion Park gangs who flood our coun­try with il­le­gal drugs and firearms that kill our chil­dren will be treat­ed the same as any oth­er gangs from Siparia, Ari­ma or Laven­tille,” she said.

The Prime Min­is­ter said the wider op­er­a­tions car­ried out dur­ing the SoE were con­duct­ed si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly with ef­forts to ad­dress the pri­ma­ry threat.

She thanked the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the Min­is­ters of De­fence, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and Jus­tice, the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, the Chief of De­fence Staff, the Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons, the Di­rec­tor of the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency and mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so ac­knowl­edged law-abid­ing cit­i­zens who sup­port­ed law­ful op­er­a­tions, pro­vid­ed in­for­ma­tion and en­dured in­con­ve­nience dur­ing the emer­gency pe­ri­od.

“I al­so thank the law-abid­ing cit­i­zens who sup­port­ed law­ful op­er­a­tions, pro­vid­ed in­for­ma­tion, en­dured in­con­ve­nience and con­tin­ued to be­lieve that Trinidad and To­ba­go can be safer.”

The SoE is sched­uled to end on Thurs­day, bring­ing the cur­rent pe­ri­od of emer­gency mea­sures to a close.