(Trinidad Express) With 2,500 people being charged for drunk driving between January 1, 2011, and September 30 this year, 125 people dying as a result of road traffic accidents between January 1 and September 30, 2013, and 289 murders during the same period, National Security Minister Gary Griffith yesterday detailed a number of initiatives to deal with the crime problem.
Speaking in the Senate, at Tower D, International Waterfront Centre, Port of Spain, in response to a question from People’s National Movement (PNM) Senator Fitzgerald Hinds, Griffith also said he received a letter from the Housing Development Corporation (HDC) which stated contractors had to pay as much as $500,000 in protection money.
He said the Rapid Response Unit would ensure people were not holding development projects and individuals to ransom by asking for protection money.
He said the acquisition of proper helicopters, which would be acquired next year, and proper information gathering would go a long way to stem crime.
Griffith said among the things being done to curb road traffic deaths were: an increase in stop-and-search exercises in all nine police divisions and increased use of breathalyser testing kits during police exercises, particularly at nights.
He said the use of laser speed guns would be introduced soon as a part of the overall traffic management plan for the nation’s highways.
“The rebranding of the traffic highway branch with specially marked vehicles being deployed along the nation’s highways has also been a deterrent. To date, a fleet of 50 vehicles…painted yellow and blue…not politically, but because it provides a higher level of visibility,” he said.
On the issue of murders, he said the police continued to work relentlessly to reduce the murder rate, to reduce criminal activity and the fear and perception of crime.
He cited the visit of American Bill Bratton, former New York and Los Angeles police chief.
Asked by PNM Senator Lester Henry whether he (Griffith) was aware Bratton’s policies were associated with racial profiling, police abuses and had resulted in tremendous lawsuits, Griffith said people only threw stones at trees that bear fruit.
“I would expect them to criticise Mr Bratton. But the fact remains as well that scientifically, it was proven, whether it is Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Boston (in the US), and even in London (England), that the man has been proven to be successful in reducing crime,” he said.
He added Government’s job was to extract which policies of Bratton could be utilised here.
He said this was why the UK asked him to be the commissioner of police of London.
He said through the Training Academy, Government intended to improve the train-
ing of police officers.
He said the murder detection rate in 2011 was 21.9 per cent, 2012—16.1 per cent and this year (January 1 to September 30, 10.7 per cent.
Saying low detection rates had been a pattern even in 2008 when the murder rate was highest and the Special Anti-Crime Unit of Trinidad and Tobago (SAUTT) at its finest (the detection rate was 15 per cent), Griffith said the key support mechanism was human intelligence, as opposed to crime scene investigation.
He said people were afraid to go to established State agencies because of a lack of trust.
He said through the VPO (virtual police officer), there would be a secure, anonymous, instantaneous and effective way for people to provide specific information by going online and dealing with the police via cyberspace.
Griffith said the installation of global positioning systems (GPS) on police vehicles would allow the measurement of performance.
He said other initiatives involved the use of CompStat crime statistics, which would be able to pinpoint where the law enforcement officials were and where they should be.
