Griffith: SOE extension an admission of failure

For­mer Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith has de­scribed the ex­ten­sion of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s State of Emer­gency (SOE) as a clear ad­mis­sion of fail­ure by the coun­try’s law en­force­ment lead­er­ship.

Grif­fith ar­gued that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had “no choice” but to pro­long the SOE be­cause of the in­abil­i­ty of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) hi­er­ar­chy to con­trol crime, de­spite al­ready hav­ing con­sti­tu­tion­al au­thor­i­ty and pow­ers. He con­trast­ed the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion with the pe­ri­od be­tween 2013 and 2015, when the then ad­min­is­tra­tion im­ple­ment­ed a se­ries of ini­tia­tives that, he said, re­duced se­ri­ous crime with­out re­sort­ing to emer­gency pow­ers.

Ac­cord­ing to Grif­fith, mea­sures such as the Com­mu­ni­ty Com­fort Pa­trol, the ac­qui­si­tion of Damen ves­sels, the Rapid Re­sponse Unit, the High­way Pa­trol, and the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Group con­tributed to the “high­est re­duc­tion in se­ri­ous crime in 31 years.” He high­light­ed the role of the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre, which was lat­er shut down, as a key fac­tor in en­sur­ing de­ter­rence, vis­i­bil­i­ty, and rapid re­sponse. Grif­fith not­ed that mur­ders in 2014 were near­ly iden­ti­cal to last year’s fig­ures - achieved with­out an SOE.

He warned that re­ly­ing on emer­gency pow­ers un­der­mines pub­lic trust and sends dam­ag­ing sig­nals in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. “For law en­force­ment to ask the Gov­ern­ment to ex­tend a State of Emer­gency is, in it­self, an ad­mis­sion of fail­ure. It is an ad­mis­sion that they are un­able to do their damn job,” Grif­fith de­clared.

The for­mer com­mis­sion­er cau­tioned that pro­longed states of emer­gency project in­sta­bil­i­ty, prompt­ing for­eign gov­ern­ments to es­ca­late trav­el ad­vi­sories. This, he said, di­rect­ly harms in­vest­ment, trade, and tourism, while erod­ing eco­nom­ic con­fi­dence. The rip­ple ef­fects, Grif­fith added, in­clude in­fla­tion, un­em­ploy­ment, and ul­ti­mate­ly more crime.

Grif­fith crit­i­cised the TTPS lead­er­ship for fail­ing to in­tro­duce new crime‑fight­ing ini­tia­tives, not­ing that the on­ly re­cent pol­i­cy was one aimed at pro­tect­ing diplo­mats. While sup­port­ive of that mea­sure, he said it re­in­forced the per­cep­tion that cit­i­zens were left un­pro­tect­ed.

“A State of Emer­gency af­fects every­one,” Grif­fith con­clud­ed. “It af­fects the econ­o­my, your pock­et, and the fu­ture of this coun­try.”