Political Scientist Professor Hamid Ghany says the move to extend the ongoing State of Emergency is necessary to give Government more time to combat crime.
Speaking on Trinidad and Tobago Today, he said overcoming violent crime requires long-term, sustained policies rather than short-term interventions, but pointed to legislative setbacks that led to the current approach.
“You are not going to overcome violent crime in a simple situation of a six and a half months period. The State did attempt to go to Parliament with legislation that was mimicking the Jamaican legislation on ZOSOs, Zones of Special Operations, and I think that the inability to get the special majority in the Senate back in January created the preconditions for this, which perhaps is more excessive than the ZOSOs would have been.”
Professor Ghany noted that Government has resisted implementing some measures being called for so as not to encroach on citizens’ rights.
“To the extent that there are restrictions, it is the decision of the State whether or not to impose restrictions during the period. There has been no curfew to date. There are issues with regard to what the State’s intelligence is telling it, which they are not going to reveal in the public domain and they have to take certain actions to deal with the situation. So far, the gravity of that in terms of curfews and so on, we haven’t gotten to that level because the situation is being handled as we go.”
He also pointed to a shift away from using crime statistics as the main measure of policing effectiveness.
“The crime statistics had always been used – the murder rate and various other rates and so on in terms of violent crime – and we’ve seen this over the years of measuring crime and criminality in this country. And what I found interesting was that the yardstick of statistics seemed to have been set aside somewhat, and a new dimension of fear of crime and feelings with regard to fear of crime have come forward.”
He added that the tool used to measure crime should remain consistent.
“The fear of crime has always been there. It is the statistics is the critical thing, and the statistics have dropped dramatically in terms of the murder rate and some of the other rates and so on. So we have seen a drop. It hasn’t gone away. The problem has not gone away, but the statistics have dropped. So I think that in terms of measurement I think the society needs to be able to recognise that crime statistics remain an important yardstick of measurement of performance.”
The State of Emergency extension was passed with 28 votes in favour and 12 against.