(Trinidad Express) Persons who are suspected criminals should be tagged with the electronic monitoring bracelet so police can catch them in the act, says temporary Government Senator Jamal Mohammed.
Mohammed’s suggestion sparked an uproar from the Opposition benches as the Opposition senators questioned if he was really serious. He made the recommendation during his contribution to the Electronic Monitoring Bill during the Senate sitting on Tuesday, at Tower D, International Waterfront Centre, Wrightson Road, Port of Spain.
In piloting the bill, Justice Minister Herbert Volney said people convicted of crimes were to be monitored with an electronic bracelet, and this will ease overcrowding in prisons and reduce the bill to maintain an offender in prison. But Mohammed, in his contribution, said: “You know, in Trinidad and Tobago, I always hear, and I don’t know if it is true, that the policemen in our country… they know who all the criminals are, they have intelligence as to who all the criminals are…they know how they operate and so on; it’s just that they cannot bring them in because of a lack of evidence or whatever the case might be.
This Electronic Monitoring Bill and this facility, the electronic monitor, we should snap it on all of those we suspect, so we can monitor them 24 hours of every day, so we know exactly where they are,” said Mohammed.
“Are you serious? Those who we suspect?” shouted Opposition members.
Mohammed responded, “Serious! For example…if the police have a suspicion that there is a possibility that a person might be involved in untoward activity…we have to be able to provide the opportunity to monitor and to take a closer look at these people who we might feel, or the intelligence officers in the community might feel, that they have to look at.”
“There is an idea out there of where these people are and what they are doing. So we have to be able to be in a position to at least look at them and monitor them, and find some way to find out what we can do to stop them,” he continued.
