Vieira on police post plan: Winning crime fight requires more than force

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Win­ning the fight against crime re­quires more than force, as last­ing re­duc­tions in crime oc­cur when strong en­force­ment is matched by equal­ly strong in­vest­ments in peo­ple, fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties, says In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor An­tho­ny Vieira.

Vieira made the com­ment yes­ter­day, fol­low­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's an­nounce­ment that Gov­ern­ment will es­tab­lish 30 joint po­lice-army posts across T&T over the next four months as part of an an­ti-crime ini­tia­tive. Six ad­di­tion­al sites are still to be de­ter­mined. The plan is in­tend­ed to re­spond to years of re­quests from com­mu­ni­ties for a greater se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence and to pro­vide res­i­dents with a sense of com­fort while help­ing them re­gain the use of pub­lic spaces.

Vieira said Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion re­flects a de­ter­mi­na­tion to con­front the scourge of vi­o­lent crime.

"Most cit­i­zens will un­der­stand, and in­deed wel­come, the de­sire of the State to demon­strate that it is present, vig­i­lant and in con­trol. There are times when firm law en­force­ment isn't on­ly jus­ti­fied but nec­es­sary," he said.

"How­ev­er, if our na­tion­al re­sponse to crime comes to be de­fined sole­ly by armed pa­trols, check­points and mil­i­tary de­ploy­ments, we risk over­look­ing a fun­da­men­tal truth: crime isn't de­feat­ed by force alone."

He said while law en­force­ment is in­dis­pens­able, his­to­ry teach­es that no so­ci­ety has ever achieved last­ing peace sim­ply by in­creas­ing the vis­i­bil­i­ty of armed per­son­nel.

"Last­ing re­duc­tions in crime oc­cur when strong en­force­ment is matched by equal­ly strong in­vest­ments in peo­ple, fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties," Vieira said.

"The chal­lenge be­fore us, there­fore, isn't whether we should pur­sue hard mea­sures or soft mea­sures. We need both. They are not com­pet­ing philoso­phies; they're com­ple­men­tary pil­lars of an ef­fec­tive na­tion­al crime strat­e­gy. They com­bine en­force­ment with long term pre­ven­tion."

He added, "Po­lice and sol­diers can sup­press as­pects of crime but on­ly fam­i­lies, schools, com­mu­ni­ties and op­por­tu­ni­ty can re­duce it per­ma­nent­ly. I ac­cept that the hand of the State must re­main firm against those who choose vi­o­lence and a life of crime. But it must al­so be ex­tend­ed in part­ner­ship to fam­i­lies striv­ing to raise their chil­dren, teach­ers shap­ing the next gen­er­a­tion, com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers build­ing hope and youths search­ing for op­por­tu­ni­ty. The on­ly an­swer is to try and en­list the pub­lic.

"Ul­ti­mate­ly, the safest so­ci­eties aren't those with the great­est num­ber of po­lice or sol­diers on their streets - they are those where cit­i­zens have the great­est stake in pre­serv­ing peace. If we tru­ly wish to win the fight against crime, we must do more than guard our com­mu­ni­ties. We must re­build them."

Vieira cit­ed points re­quir­ing at­ten­tion:

Strong fam­i­lies - Re­main T&T's first and best line of de­fence against crime. Par­ent­ing sup­port, coun­selling ser­vices, sub­stance abuse treat­ment, do­mes­tic vi­o­lence in­ter­ven­tion and ear­ly child­hood pro­grammes are among the most ef­fec­tive crime pre­ven­tion mea­sures. Sup­port­ing fam­i­lies to­day pre­vents vic­tim­i­sa­tion to­mor­row.

Schools - Too many boys grow up with­out a sta­ble fa­ther or pos­i­tive male role mod­el. In­creas­ing the num­ber of male teach­ers, to­geth­er with struc­tured men­tor­ing pro­grammes in­volv­ing re­tired teach­ers, law en­force­ment per­son­nel, trades­men and oth­er re­spect­ed pro­fes­sion­als, could have a pro­found in­flu­ence on young men's lives.

Em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties - Many school leavers pos­sess tal­ent but lack prac­ti­cal path­ways in­to mean­ing­ful work. Ex­pand­ed ap­pren­tice­ship pro­grammes, vo­ca­tion­al train­ing, dig­i­tal skills de­vel­op­ment and part­ner­ships with in­dus­try would pro­vide youths with re­al­is­tic al­ter­na­tives to crim­i­nal re­cruit­ment.

* Sport - All as­pects, plus steel­band, dance and oth­er or­gan­ised ac­tiv­i­ties teach dis­ci­pline, team­work and re­silience, pro­vid­ing youths with pur­pose and be­long­ing.

* Part­ner­ships - Gov­ern­ment should deep­en part­ner­ships with church­es, mandirs, mosques, non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions, ser­vice clubs and com­mu­ni­ty groups. These al­ready pos­sess the trust, cred­i­bil­i­ty and lo­cal knowl­edge that no gov­ern­ment de­part­ment can eas­i­ly repli­cate. Crime pre­ven­tion is ul­ti­mate­ly a shared na­tion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

* Re­buid­ing com­mu­ni­ty life - Many neigh­bour­hoods of­fer few places where res­i­dents can gath­er. Com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres, li­braries, sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties, cul­tur­al spaces and well-main­tained parks help build re­la­tion­ships, strength­en neigh­bour­hood iden­ti­ty and cre­ate so­cial co­he­sion that dis­cour­ages crime.

* Ur­ban spaces/en­vi­ron­men­tal de­sign - Ad­dress­ing com­mu­ni­ties which have be­come con­crete land­scapes and con­di­tions al­low­ing crime to flour­ish. Trees, shad­ed walk­ways, parks, com­mu­ni­ty gar­dens and at­trac­tive pub­lic spaces im­prove men­tal well-be­ing and en­cour­age pos­i­tive so­cial in­ter­ac­tion. Bet­ter light­ing, clean­er streets, re­de­vel­op­ment of aban­doned build­ings, safer pedes­tri­an routes and well-main­tained pub­lic spaces con­tribute to re­duc­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties for crime.