SAUTT and what not

SAUTT is an amalgamation of highly trained and experienced professionals from the Police, Regiment, Coast Guard, Prisons and civilian population. The Unit’s main thrust is to provide the state-of-the-art resources required to effectively support local law enforcement agencies in the continuing war on crime. In the interest of effectiveness and greatest impact on its targets, SAUTT works quietly behind the scenes and has earned the respect and won the collaboration of these agencies.

SAUTT has quite recently established a Crime Academy to provide training and develop the investigative capability of SAUTT personnel and other members of the national security community in the most modern crime fighting techniques. Courses include training in crime-scene management, credible and admissible evidence, criminal prosecution, statistics and data, cutting edge technology and operational issues. The Academy is internationally accredited and continues to strengthen and capitalise on linkages with the Police Training College in Hendon, England, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Agency as well as Scotland Yard and our own University of the West Indies. The Academy will also employ top class lecturers to assist the Academy in implementing its programme.

SAUTT prides itself on being a highly technical and professional crime-fighting organisation, among its staff are at least three full time attorneys-at-law who advise and collate evidence from crime scenes for presentation to the Director of Public Prosecutions and Police Prosecutors in the various Magistrates Courts as well as review the files on unsolved crimes, particularly homicide. In this regard the Unit has established a recruitment policy that will attract tertiary level candidates into law enforcement. It is in the process of identifying and inviting suitable inductees and post-graduate nationals of Trinidad and Tobago who wish to return home to develop and be a part of this academic exercise. SAUTT’s activities are also complementary to the work being done by Professor Mastrofski and his support staff which focus on intense training in all areas of policing and administration.

SAUTT’s ability to attract the appropriate type of human resource for training and deployment continues to be paramount, notwithstanding the presence of police officers recruited from Great Britain and some of the negative publicity to which they have been subjected. In fact, the media seems more concerned with developing a negative image for SAUTT than highlighting the good work it has done in supporting the anti-crime drive, even when SAUTT has tried to correct errors in press reports and otherwise.

SAUTT’s principal mandate is a reduction in kidnappings for ransom; trafficking and offences committed with illegal firearms; organised crime and terrorism and other crimes of national significance. While some progress has been made in recent times with the former, the rate of homicide continues to rise and even greater efforts will be made to reduce this. It is responsible for deploying the recently recruited law enforcers from the UK, to work alongside our own in the Criminal Investigations Department and to train the latter in handling the various crime scenes, identifying credible and admissible evidence, interrogation of suspects, the conduct of identification parades and processing of DNA in anticipation of the suitable amendment of the existing Act. It plays a pivotal role in the handling of deportees from foreign countries which total as many as 26 persons in any given day. In so doing, it receives the “curricula vitae” of each deportee, for risk analysis and tracing, if necessary, in order to minimise the importation of crime and competent criminal elements. Its access to state-of-the-art technology in scanning, identification, sketching the face of a suspect and intelligence reports will all populate the databases on which police officers on the street will rely in the future. Our members whose businesses are considered to be high risk to international terrorism may find some relief in learning that SAUTT has carefully studied the Anti-Terrorism Act, No 27 in 2004 and is in the process of implementing a programme to train human resources in dealing with this 21st Century challenge. The Chamber considers this vital, having regard to the country’s reliance on oil, gas and energy based industries as the basis of the economy.

SAUTT’s discreet successes have not been without pain as it anxiously awaits the workable and victim-friendly DNA Act. SAUTT admits that the much criticised airship programme has had its teething problems and has handicapped its intelligence gathering activities. What is not in doubt however is the ability of this method of surveillance to deliver results now that the “bugs” have been worked out during a relatively successful trial period. With a new airship on the way to provide improved surveillance, the Unit expects a greater impact on the rate of kidnappings and homicides.

In the future SAUTT proposes to establish field offices in Trinidad and one in Tobago. With respect to Tobago, SAUTT has been instrumental with the support of the UK law enforcers in providing the police in Tobago with ongoing assistance in gathering intelligence and planning the arrest and successful conviction of criminal elements there.