Promising paradise? You bet your life!

Professor Ramesh Deosaran didn’t pull a single punch when he was “pounding” the police in the Senate last Tuesday, treating them to the same sound beating they are known to mete out to suspects or prisoners in their “interrogation” rooms. Why should the Independent Senator pussyfoot around the shambles that is our police service? The time has more than come for everyone to be blunt, to call a dull, rusted spade exactly what it is, a useless tool. The TT police force has not, for ages and for a myriad of reasons, been doing its jobs, and that is that. The evidence of this is readily available for all to see, and it is not to be found solely in alarming crime statistics.

For example, I’m sure most of us don’t believe that the police will ever come to our aid when we phone up the station. We know what we’re going to hear: that there are no vehicles or no drivers for these - no matter how much money successive governments spend on cars and jeeps. We also know that we can do nothing about the police’s failure to respond. We can’t even be sure that the cops will serve us when an offence is committed before their very eyes. Just look at what happened to the TTT cameraman in Siparia last week and outside of all places, a court.

Policemen on duty refused to go to his rescue when he was being thrashed by a relative of one of their own, a PC David Merez, there on a criminal charge, although the police are not only obliged to protect a citizen from attack by another, but are also charged with maintaining order in the court environs. The physical proof of the police’s inability to look after us is evident everywhere. It is present in the mushrooming that has taken place in the private security firm business; in the miles of razor wire and burglar proof we use to keep the criminals out; in the number of bad dogs we have in our gardens; and in the alarms and weapons we have in our houses, our work places and our cars to defend our property and our lives.

We spend lots of money to defend ourselves or we pay other private citizens thousands of dollars to defend us, even as we pay the police millions to protect and serve us. The taxpayer is being ripped off. By cops! Many of us do not trust police officers, at all, having been victims of their corruption, inefficiency, indifference, brutality, bullying and discourtesy, at one time or another of our lives.  We tend to view most of them not as the solution to the crime problem, but a large part of that problem. We all have horror stories we can tell about many of our police officers. “Not me and the police,” is our refrain, whether we are law-breakers or not. Reports such as those in the press last week don’t help to reduce the impression that the police service contains not just a few rotten apples, but is rotten to the core. We read that police in Tobago face disciplinary action for suddenly deciding to offer no evidence against the Bajan fishermen when these were caught in Tobago waters in February. We read that a suspect in the Christopher  Aleong murder died under mysterious circumstances while in police custody.

We read of the cops who failed to save the TTT cameraman and of the police helping their PC brother to escape the media cameras by driving him in a tinted car to the back of the Siparia court and whisking him in through the back door. So we know why Deosaran said what he said and how he said it, and why we don’t need statistics alone to tell us that the police corps is presently less than capable of serving or protecting us. The central question thus, on everyone’s minds lately, must be whether and how the proposed police bills will bring not only a new police force with a fresh culture and attitude, but also a new safety and quality to our lives. Passing bills is one thing, but legislation - these three bills in particular - must sooner rather than later, translate into something tangible, practical and useful. Unfortunately, quite a lot of legislation does not. The PNM, in its advertising blitz, is not just pressuring the people to pressure the UNC to support the bills, it is promising us that this police legislation will turn Trinidad and Tobago into a crime free paradise. The ruling party is saying that these three bills will bring lower crime statistics and return the public confidence in the police to safeguard us.

I have some questions of my own. Can the Government ensure that after the bills are law, we will be able to pick up the phone, call the police and they will actually come? Can the PNM guarantee that the bills will mean that TT’s citizens can return to leading normal lives without fear of losing these? Will we be able to take taxis at any hour, hold parties in our yards, leave our doors open, get rid of the Rotts and the razor wire? Will policemen and women who moonlight in New York while on extended vacation, who lime and drink while on duty, who treat victims like criminals, who have no regard for human rights, who take bribes, who simply fail to act, be treated as severely as they deserve? Will we stop seeing policemen protecting their fellow officers when these are charged with crimes? Will suspected felons stop perishing in police stations? Will lip service be replaced by full service?

I’ve perused the three bills and though I do believe some of the clauses and provisions they contain to be downright dangerous, I still can’t make up my mind if the bills provide affirmative answers to any of my questions. But I may be a cynic who has just seen many of the “authorities” created by our congress fail to function properly, for one reason or another. The  Environmental Management Authority is one such body. I do know this though; if the three pieces of legislation are passed they better deliver tangible results. People better start to feel safer. The PNM hasn’t simply spent a lot of money promoting these bills; it has bet our lives and its political career on them.