Police recruits could face age-limit dilemma under new law

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

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When the Mis­cel­la­neous Pro­vi­sions (Al­co­hol, Cannabis, Dan­ger­ous Drugs, Gam­bling and To­bac­co) Bill, 2026 comes in­to ef­fect next year, there will be po­lice of­fi­cers who may not be able to drink a beer or smoke a cig­a­rette, yet car­ry a firearm.

Speak­ing at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, head of the Po­lice Train­ing Acad­e­my, Snr Supt Richard Tay­lor, said po­lice of­fi­cers are re­cruit­ed from the ages of 18 to 35.

The bill would make 25 the thresh­old for pos­sess­ing cannabis with­in per­mis­si­ble quan­ti­ties and cul­ti­vat­ing up to four plants.

For gam­bling, cit­i­zens un­der 25 are pro­hib­it­ed from en­ter­ing gam­bling es­tab­lish­ments to gam­ble or par­tic­i­pate in elec­tron­i­cal­ly or­gan­ised gam­bling. It would ex­tend crim­i­nal li­a­bil­i­ty to peo­ple be­tween 18 and 20 for the use or pos­ses­sion of al­co­hol or to­bac­co and to those be­tween 18 and 24 for the use or pos­ses­sion of cannabis or dan­ger­ous drugs.

Against this back­drop, Tay­lor, as well as pub­lic in­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer ASP Owie Rus­sell, were asked if the law should be amend­ed to al­low of­fi­cers to en­ter the po­lice ser­vice at an old­er age.

Rus­sell said: “What I’m try­ing to say is that we would want to, as a re­spon­si­ble or­gan­i­sa­tion, we would want to see what the con­tents of the law ac­tu­al­ly state be­fore we go fur­ther to make any ad­just­ments or amend­ments.”

He said the po­lice com­mis­sion­er is the one to say if any spe­cial unit will be formed to po­lice the law.

Asked if the of­fi­cers must un­der­go spe­cialised train­ing for this par­tic­u­lar of­fence, Rus­sell said of­fi­cers, when giv­en new pow­ers, must be equipped to use them law­ful­ly, fair­ly, and most im­por­tant­ly, with re­straint.

“The TTPS has al­ready met and for­mu­lat­ed a plan on its ap­proach to im­ple­men­ta­tion of new leg­is­la­tion which fits seam­less­ly in­to its lat­est an­ti-crime op­er­a­tions.”

Com­ment­ing on the en­force­ment of the law, for­mer DCP in charge of op­er­a­tions Jayson Forde said the TTPS will not be rein­vent­ing the wheel.

“The po­lice of­fi­cers don’t have to rein­vent any wheel. Look at what hap­pened in the past, ap­ply to­day’s abil­i­ty, and to­day’s tech­niques. I feel that they will be able to have a good mea­sure of suc­cess.”

He likened the law to when cin­e­mas had age re­stric­tions on movies and that was po­liced, re­call­ing at one time as a teen he was stopped from en­ter­ing the cin­e­ma be­cause he did not meet the age re­quire­ment. He said while some “may slip through the cracks,” he had no doubt that of­fi­cers are able to en­force the law.

How­ev­er, he warned that some peo­ple de­ter­mined to break the law would find ways to fraud­u­lent­ly ac­quire fake ID cards.

Train­ing is a must

Tay­lor, who is al­so an at­tor­ney, agreed when asked if there should be a law man­dat­ing po­lice of­fi­cers to use body cam­eras, say­ing every of­fi­cer that pass­es through the acad­e­my is al­ready trained to use them. “Well, yes. I want to say yes. How­ev­er, body cam­eras cost. I think the rea­son why every of­fi­cer at this point in time is not out­fit­ted with a cam­era is be­cause of the cost. But yes, all of­fi­cers are trained when they come to the acad­e­my to use body cam­eras. So, every re­cruit that leaves the acad­e­my is trained.”

In the last five years, Tay­lor said be­tween 5,000 and 8,000 of­fi­cers un­der­went re­train­ing in var­i­ous top­ics as part of the po­lice ser­vice im­prove­ment meth­ods.

The top­ics in­clude use of force, treat­ing with de-es­ca­la­tion, cus­tomer ser­vice, in­ves­tiga­tive skills and oth­ers.