‘Slaying the Hydra’

Over the last few months the increase in serious crimes, including murders and kidnappings, like the mythological hydra has attacked us on all fronts. There are a number of initiatives which need to be taken if we like Hercules are to slay this beast. First crime prevention should be a major goal.  Society must be so structured as to encourage persons to engage in productive legitimate activity and to make life worth living for the less fortunate members of society.  This means that there should be enough jobs paying sustainable wages to keep the population in full employment.  There must also be meaningful social programmes to equip needy persons to become marketable while enabling them to enjoy a reasonable standard of living. 

The full employment strategies should include training our citizens to acquire technical skills and to become tradesmen.  Institutions such as The John S Donaldson Technical Institute should be quickly refurbished and similar institutions established in Tobago, East, Central and South Trinidad.  Such institutions would not just take a number of persons, mainly young people, off the streets, but would equip them for meaningful employment. Secondly, there is a need for properly investigating and solving crime. While there has been an increase in the number of serious crimes there does not appear to be a corresponding increase in the police manpower available to investigate crimes.  Experience has shown that too often the very  police officers engaged in investigating today’s crime are simultaneously attending court and giving evidence in a case involving last year’s crime. An officer in such a position cannot give the full and proper attention required to investigate today’s crime.

Thirdly, there is the pressing need to ensure that prosecution of accused persons at all levels is conducted by lawyers.  As far back as 1978 Government published a White Paper recommending that police prosecutors be replaced by trained lawyers.  To date the recommendation has not been implemented, even after a passionate call by The Chief Justice. The failure to implement the recommendation means that police officers who should be doing police work are doing lawyer’s work for which they are not necessarily trained.  The White Paper said that it was remarkable that in Trinidad and Tobago policemen are still to be found discharging the duties of prosecutors.  The spectacle of a policeman doing those duties together with his other duties was at best unsettling and, at worst, most alarming. Most advanced developing countries have abandoned the practice of policeprosecutors. Fourthly,  The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions must be strengthened immediately.  That Office is under-staffed and the officers are underpaid so that the best quality lawyers are not attracted to positions in that Office.  Again the present Chief Justice has lamented the failure to properly staff The Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The problems of that Office also involve the unsuitable accommodation which is now provided for that Office.  It is a disaster waiting to happen. Fifthly, there is need for lawyers to cooperate in ensuring that proceedings in the Criminal Courts proceed with reasonable speed.  Adjournments should not be requested by lawyers unless they are necessary. Sixthly, there is a need for urgent reform of the prison system.  For too long reform has been discussed without action.  President Nelson Mandela rightly said in 1998 that “the full contribution which our prisons can make toward a permanent reduction in the country’s crime rate, lies also in the way they treat prisoners. We cannot emphasise enough the importance of both professionalism and respect for human rights.”  The Cabinet appointed Task Force on Prison Reform and Transformation in its final Report in 2002 recognised that the inmate is always a citizen who, sooner or later, in most instances, would return to normal life in society and as such is basically entitled to have human dignity, of course, but also his/or her rights as a citizen respected to the largest possible extent. 

It is therefore unacceptable for our prison system to be governed by archaic Prison Rules which have been in force since 1943 and for our prisons to remain as overcrowded as they are.  As long ago as 1987 Davis J  commented on the fact that cells in death row measuring 9 feet by 6 feet were not intended to house a condemned prisoner for a prolonged period of time yet we continue to do so. The situation is no better in relation to ordinary cells.  In 2000 Chief Justice de la Bastide commented in the case of Abraham vs The AG and the said Abraham had been imprisoned wrongly for 70 days in conditions which were particularly unpleasant as he was kept in an overcrowded cell with some 19 other men.

Surely no society with a proper respect for human rights should allow these conditions to persist.  Further as the Abraham case shows overcrowded prison conditions result in the State paying increased damages. There is much more that can be written to justify the need for urgent reform of our prison system but we raise just one more mater, which is referred to in the Task Force Report. Young female offenders should not be sent to the adult women’s prison under any circumstances.  Urgent steps should be taken to deal with this. We are of the view that if the issues raised in this column are meaningfully addressed we will certainly see positive results  as we continue our battle to conquer the multi-headed beast that is crime.