TACKLING THE BANDITS

Last year when the Police moved against vending on Charlotte Street and instituted regular patrols to ensure compliance the benefits were clear.  Not only were the pavements freed of the obstruction which had been caused by wayside vending, allowing shoppers and pedestrians generally to go about their business in comfort, but the Police presence meant the deterring of pickpockets, purse and jewelry snatchers and other lawbreakers. Today, with the relative absence of Police, not only have the wayside vendors returned, but the bandits appear to be out there in even larger numbers than before last year’s crackdown. Last week, concerned Charlotte Street merchants protested an upsurge in criminal activities within recent months, with anywhere between 15 and 30 cases daily of lawbreaking.
 
And with their protest came the warning that soon the thievery could spread to other parts of Port-of-Spain.  What is unfortunate is that the Police seem only to come out in large numbers during periods of increased shopping, such as Divali and Christmas, when the protests against stealing whether from the person or otherwise street vending and loitering are at their peak, and fade away with the end of the seasonal shopping. It is a treatment, bordering on the cosmetic, of what is after all a troubling situation. It is almost as though the authorities are prepared to act in making the streets of the capital city less troublesome only when there is a public outcry.  The impression is conveyed, however inadvertently, that the annual reaction to the protests carries with it the cynical stamp of a public relations exercise — the holding of a press conference, the issuing of statements and a flurry of Police activity.
 
The effective handling of crime and criminals is a year-round job, and is not the all too often projected image of reacting to mounting complaints and protests.  There is an inferred lack of seriousness provoked by the absence of continuity.  Every year, almost as clockwork, the Police and the Port-of-Spain City Corporation, as Christmas nears and merchants make strident demands for action against pavement vendors and thieves, suddenly have the energy to rouse themselves from a Rip Van Winkle-like slumber. Illegal vending is contained for the moment, only to return, virtually unnoticed by the authorities, once the season is ended.  The same applies to dealing with the illegal trafficking in pirated music.

An uproar from COTT prompts a sudden burst of energy by the Police in dealing with vendors with illegally produced CDs.  Today, you can walk along almost any street in downtown Port-of-Spain and find pirated music on sale, with Police officers strolling past the carts and vendors seemingly oblivious to what is going on. The cynical inaction of the Poilce has been dramatised this time around by Charlotte Stret merchants fearful of a loss of not only their area to bandits, but a loss of Port-of-Spain.  It is a cry for help to rescue the capital city from encroaching untoward activity, and to deal with a situation which threatens to escalate in the long term, with long term measures.
 
It is disturbing that the merchants have had to seek the support of the media because of the seeming lethargy of those who have promised to protect and serve.  It is wholly unacceptable that the Ministry of National Security and the Port-of-Spain City Corporation, what with Government seeking to have Trinidad and Tobago win the bid to be the headquarters of the Free Trade Area of the Americas, should have allowed this situation to have developed.  Whether it is as serious as it appears is not the point. Instead, appropriate preventive measures must be implemented to ensure that the situation does not escalate. In other words, not only must the authorities act, but they must have a long term plan in place to put a damper on the unseemly behaviour against which the Charlotte Street merchants have protested.  And by long term, we do not mean simply up to the end of this year’s Christmas season.