Deosaran warns against panic response to crime

INDEPENDENT SENATOR, Prof Ramesh Deosaran, yesterday expressed support for the business community’s demands for Government to act swiftly to deal with crime in Trinidad and Tobago. However Deosaran simultaneously advised Government against resorting to panic-driven policies “just to appease public pressure.” The senator said Government must now roll out a clearly-defined home-grown range of actions, properly benchmarked and with expeditious law enforcement and sustainable crime prevention elements, assuming it “has the capability to do so.”

Deosaran lamented that, to date, Government’s anti-crime policies appear to be guided by “noise, public pressure and threats” rather than “quiet reasoning, sober analysis and data-driven policies.” He recalled that while intense pressure was placed on the Jamaican government two years ago by its private sector to deal with crime, those “desperate measures” did not solve the problem.

“Just as the business community wants sustainable employment, so too should we have sustainable crime reduction and prevention. Not panic responses,” Deosaran stated. On the call by the business community for Government and Opposition to cooperate and pass the Police Reform Bills in Parliament, Deosaran wondered whether business persons had studied the implications contained in specific clauses of the legislation, or the current powers available to the National Security Minister, Police Commissioner and the Police Service Commission.