Owner Dealers Association questions effectiveness of crime measures

The Own­er Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion (ODA) is ques­tion­ing the ef­fec­tive­ness of the Gov­ern­ment’s crime-fight­ing mea­sures, warn­ing that re­stric­tions on move­ment could place ad­di­tion­al fi­nan­cial pres­sure on busi­ness­es al­ready strug­gling to re­cov­er from the ef­fects of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

In a me­dia re­lease, ODA pres­i­dent Reval Chat­ter­goon said the as­so­ci­a­tion sup­port­ed ini­tia­tives to tack­le crime but ex­pressed con­cern about mea­sures that could af­fect busi­ness­es de­pen­dent on the free move­ment of peo­ple through­out the coun­try.

Chat­ter­goon said the prospect of re­newed re­stric­tions on move­ment brought back mem­o­ries of the pan­dem­ic, when lock­downs and cur­fews left busi­ness­es strug­gling with loan re­pay­ments, mort­gages, rent and re­duced in­come.

He warned that some busi­ness­es had still not re­cov­ered from the eco­nom­ic ef­fects of the pan­dem­ic and were now con­tend­ing with in­creased tax­es, op­er­at­ing costs and what he de­scribed as un­fair tax­a­tion prac­tices.

The ODA’s con­cerns come amid the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, which Chat­ter­goon said had gen­er­at­ed anx­i­ety among law-abid­ing cit­i­zens be­cause of what he de­scribed as a lack of clar­i­ty sur­round­ing its pro­vi­sions.

He ques­tioned whether the pro­posed polic­ing dis­tricts or zones could un­fair­ly pe­nalise the wider pop­u­la­tion in an ef­fort to ad­dress crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

Cit­ing fig­ures he said were tak­en from the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) web­site, Chat­ter­goon not­ed that 10,770 crimes were re­port­ed in 2025, com­pared with 9,938 in 2024 and 10,335 in 2023.

The fig­ures al­so showed 2,720 re­port­ed crimes up to April 2026.

Chat­ter­goon ar­gued that the re­port­ed crime fig­ures rep­re­sent­ed a small pro­por­tion of the coun­try’s pop­u­la­tion of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1.4 mil­lion. He ques­tioned whether the pro­posed mea­sures would im­pose un­nec­es­sary re­stric­tions on the ma­jor­i­ty of cit­i­zens.

How­ev­er, he said the as­so­ci­a­tion’s con­cerns ex­tend­ed be­yond move­ment re­stric­tions to the ef­fec­tive­ness and cost of the Gov­ern­ment’s crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tives.

Chat­ter­goon point­ed out that na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty bud­get al­lo­ca­tions had ex­ceed­ed $6 bil­lion over the past three years and ques­tioned what tan­gi­ble re­sults tax­pay­ers had re­ceived from that ex­pen­di­ture.

He al­so called for greater trans­paren­cy sur­round­ing the cost and ef­fec­tive­ness of the TTPS En­force­ment Vis­i­bil­i­ty Ini­tia­tive, in­volv­ing Li­dar guns, and the Ac­tive Di­rect­ed Pa­trol Ini­tia­tive, which us­es elec­tric ve­hi­cles.

Among the ques­tions raised were how much the ini­tia­tives cost, how they were fund­ed, how many po­lice di­vi­sions ben­e­fit­ed and how many of­fend­ers were rep­ri­mand­ed as a re­sult.

He al­so ques­tioned whether the ini­tia­tives could op­er­ate around the clock and whether the po­lice ser­vice’s ex­ist­ing 24-hour shifts were pro­duc­ing the de­sired re­sults.

The ODA pres­i­dent fur­ther raised con­cerns about the prac­ti­cal im­pli­ca­tions of polic­ing zones for shift work­ers and stu­dents at­tend­ing evening class­es, ques­tion­ing how they would ac­cess goods and ser­vices if move­ment be­tween dis­tricts be­came re­strict­ed.

He al­so called for po­lice re­sources to be dis­trib­uted ac­cord­ing to the size of polic­ing dis­tricts, the num­ber of calls for ser­vice and crime sta­tis­tics in each area.

Chat­ter­goon sug­gest­ed that mo­bile po­lice pa­trols sta­tioned at strate­gic lo­ca­tions could of­fer a more prac­ti­cal re­sponse to crime than fixed po­lice posts.

He cit­ed the dis­tance be­tween the Ari­ma Po­lice Sta­tion and Blan­chisseuse as an ex­am­ple, not­ing that of­fi­cers could take ap­prox­i­mate­ly an hour to reach a crime scene in the re­mote com­mu­ni­ty.

He ques­tioned whether strate­gi­cal­ly po­si­tioned mo­bile pa­trols could im­prove re­sponse times while pro­vid­ing a greater po­lice pres­ence in vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties.

The as­so­ci­a­tion al­so ques­tioned why, with ap­prox­i­mate­ly 7,000 po­lice of­fi­cers and thou­sands of re­port­ed crimes an­nu­al­ly, the ser­vice could not im­prove its crime-pre­ven­tion and de­tec­tion record.

Chat­ter­goon said the Gov­ern­ment need­ed to con­sid­er the prac­ti­cal­i­ty, lo­gis­tics and cost of its ini­tia­tives, ar­gu­ing that short-term mea­sures im­ple­ment­ed with­out ad­e­quate con­sul­ta­tion could cre­ate ad­di­tion­al chal­lenges.

“Any ini­tia­tive in­tend­ed to re­duce crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty is sup­port­ed,” he said, while stress­ing the need for trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

He warned that the coun­try should not re­peat past ap­proach­es to crime pre­ven­tion while ex­pect­ing dif­fer­ent re­sults.