Austin: Deportees a red herring

Does poor cricket cause crime? So asked United States Ambassador, Roy Austin, in a novel retort to claims by Minister of Trade, Ken Valley, that increased US deportations to Trinidad had caused an upsurge in crime.

Speaking to Newsday after a media conference at Marli Street yesterday, Austin dismissed claims linking deportations to the crime rate as being mere “perceptions.” Earlier, Ken Valley had told reporters: “Before we had deportees we did not have kidnapping. Now we have deportees and we have kidnapping. There is a causal relationship.” Countering Valley, Austin said: “I’d like to remind Minister Valley, my friend, to be very careful with the logical conclusions he is drawing, because taken to their logical conclusion they may come back to bite him.”

Using hyperbole, Austin scoffed: “It could be said that the crime rate has been increasing because the West Indies cricket team has been losing. Are we to say that the West Indies losing is causing an increase in crime?” Austin acknowledged that a widespread perception existed in the Caribbean that deportees had caused an upsurge in crime, but he said that just because many people were perceiving a thing, did not make that thing true. “People are making claims, speculating, but no one produces hard evidence.”

By contrast, he said, he had taken the best evidence and shown that deportees were responsible for under one percent of murders in Trinidad and Tobago and a similar number of rapes. They committed 1.7 percent of drug violations. Asked about the source and credibility of his figures, Austin said they were local official statistics and United States statistics. He remarked: “People all over the Caribbean have been speculating. It is probably to their Governments’ advantage to make these claims.” Such claims he said were misleading and caused people to look away from the reality of the situation.”

Told of a recent and very critical article by Randall Richard of the Associated Press which linked deportees to crime, Austin mocked: “It won’t be the first time the Associated Press wrote nonsense.” Asked if he was personally happy about the deportee situation, he said it was not something to be happy or unhappy about, saying: “We need to look at the truth and stop speculating. It would have been nice if they (ie deportees) had gone to the United States like most people do, uplift themselves and work and send home money, and stay away from crime. Unfortunately, some do get involved in crime.” Austin also observed: “Trinidad and Tobago sends home people from the Caribbean, and Caribbean countries send people back to Trinidad and Tobago.”