Ag CoP: Govt did not accept Giuliani plan

ACTING COMMISSIONER of Police, Trevor Paul yesterday denied that Government accepted a crime proposal offered by former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. He described media reports on the matter as misleading and total sensationalism. At a news conference at Police Administration Building with Assistant Chief of the Miami Police Department, the Acting CoP said even before a company owned by Giuliani offered its services to the Government last year, the police had been studying aspects of Giuliani’s COMPSTAT plan to see how applicable they were to local law enforcement. Paul said while he mentioned that the police were implementing a crime control model which included some features of COMPSTAT, that did not mean Government or the police had bought into the Giuliani plan wholesale. 

Paul said only Prime Minister Patrick Manning or National Security Minister Martin Joseph were authorised to make definitive statements on what crime proposals have been accepted or rejected by the Government. Giuliani offered his services to the Government in December 2003 and in March, Joseph wrote to Giuliani to inform him that Government was declining his offer. In that letter, the Minister said Government’s decision was based on data supplied by Giuliani’s company and its own investigations into the effectiveness of a similar crime plan used by that company in Mexico.

That plan was condemned by several agencies in the United States and throughout Latin America as being too costly and deficient in terms of the social aspects of crime. Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday said Giuliani conceded to him that his plan could not work without constitutional reform in Trinidad and Tobago. Panday also said Giuliani’s offer to the Government was a case of Giuliani seeking business opportunities in TT and the former New York Mayor was free to do so as a businessman.