Enforce Anti-Gang Act

But at the same time, Ramlogan admitted to not being happy with the police enforcement of the legislation, which has been criticised as vague and unworkable.

“I have received reports from the Government informally that suggests the Anti-Gang Act has been working the way it is intended to,” he said. “The Act has two aspects: the first is how it acts as a psychological deterrent; the second is the police enforcement of the law. I am not too happy with the second aspect of it. I think the police service should do a lot more to enforce the anti-gang legislation.”

Ramlogan said he would not comment further but noted it was for the Police Service Commission (PSC) to appraise the performance of the police service.

Ramlogan said prosecutions in other countries with anti-gang legislation “are very rare” and reiterated that in his view, the “psychological” aspect of the legislation is working.

“I believe the anti-gang law has had a deterrent effect on young people who might want to join gangs,” he said. Ramlogan also yesterday said the Government would consider ways of regulating the posting of comments on news websites. He said this in context of his discussion of Government combating cyber-crime.

“It is a very serious issue in Trinidad, a very important issue,” he said.“In all three daily newspapers you can post comments online and it can have very damaging effects. So all of these are things we are going to look at to strike the right balance so that we can maximise the usage of what is a very important medium.” In fact, online comments can only be posted on the web-sites of two of the three daily newspapers.