236 coming each year

Minister of Social Development, Hamid Abdul-Mustapha, revealed that 236 deportees from abroad enter Trinidad and Tobago each year and that these persons might pose a threat to the security of the country. He was contributing to the Budget debate on Tuesday evening in the Senate. Many people believed, he said, that deportees posed a security threat. “There is a perception they are trained in criminal activity, possibly coming out of prison.” Such ex-patriate Trinidad and Tobago nationals being sent back here, he said, experienced problems of social integration and lack of family support. The Government was treating the deportee question as a social issue rather than a criminal issue and hoped to implement a support programme for them next year. This would involve reintegration, monitoring, resettlement, skills-training and counselling, to help prevent social displacement and criminality.  Previously in the Budget debate in the Lower House Minister of Legal Affairs, Camille Robinson-Regis, had blamed the former UNC government for acceding to deportations from the United States.

Abdul-Mustapha also said that the country had a problem of prison recidivism, some 56 percent of inmates being repeat offenders. “We want to help reintegrate them into society and into their families. They find themselves alienated with very little support, and it is easy to be reabsorbed intocriminal activity.” He hoped to foster a greater willingness by society to accept ex-prisoners, saying his Ministry would like to provide them with life-skills training, counselling, job placement services and temporary accomodation. Abdul-Mustapha said the country’s population was increasingly aging, expected to grow from 12 percent of the population in 2010 to comptrise 43 percent of the population by 2050. His Ministry was establishing a Division of Aging, having already employed a director. This division would implement a soon-to-be compiled National Policy on Aging, and would monitor homes for the aged by licensing, inspection and setting standards.