By Kimberly Ramkhalawan
April 18, 2023
With violent crime being described as an epidemic by Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, and him declaring it as a Public health issue, CARICOM kick started its two day Regional Symposium-Violence as a Public Health Issue – The Crime Challenge at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Trinidad on Monday. CARICOM Secretary General, Dr Carla Barnett commended Dr Rowley for hosting the event, and for including the region in what started as a national discourse on crime as a public health issue.
But is the view held by our regional heads that crime and violence is a health issue a valid one? On day one of the conference, many leaders sought to justify this with host Prime Minister Dr Rowley, leading the way by listing the costs of treating bullet wounds about the human body, at the nation’s hospitals, a mounting expense at the state’s health facilities. The TT PM shared that ‘a surgical intervention to the head costs approximately TT$170,000, a surgical intervention for a chest wound would cost about TT$135,000. A shot to the leg requiring surgical intervention would cost just under TT$100,000 and a leg shot without surgical intervention would cost about TT$40,000 in medical care and attention’.
And while admitting that Trinidad and Tobago reached its the highest murder toll in 2022, with over 600 murders recorded by the year’s end, he said the solution was not easy as the change of ministers holding the National Security portfolio and went on to list the number of Ministers each cabinet has had in the last 15 years, since crime statistics began to increase, as proof that no one government had the answer.
Also sharing opening statements was Prime Minister of The Bahamas, Philip Brave Davis, who shared that it was a matter of seeing crime not just as a social issue, but a multi-prong health issue. He too looked at the use of cocaine and other drugs which took root in the region in the 80s as being the primary cause for its current crime problem.
This sentiment was one shared across the board among Caribbean leaders, including Jamaican PM Andrew Holness, who stated that the level of crimes witnessed today within member states, did not start yesterday, but decades ago when smaller, less serious crimes were not taken seriously and drugs began infiltrating member states. Holness says crime has damaged the region’s brands on the global marketplace, marking states as unsafe countries to visit, while the perception that corruption ruled at all levels, having weakened the justice system with friends in the police, and also having infiltrated at the border controls through bribes. He however is says Caribbean countries have become trapped in their archaic and outdated laws and thinking and is calling for more to be done by member states on their own when it comes to formulating policies that protect their own. Holness says for far too long the region has depended on foreign nations to let them know when something was wrong, often due to something that is in their interest and not necessarily that of CARICOM nations. The Jamaican PM says the time had come for countries to put their money in their mouths and act in their own interest, by ensuring borders was protected and scanners at ports were efficient in detecting illegal items.
But it was Barbados Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley who brought it back to the legislative arm of the state and reform that has allowed criminals, specifically murderers to access bail, something she says unheard of in her day as a criminal attorney despite many of the murders within the region having been committed by people with multiple murder charges. With that she chimed in saying that “If you can get people to court within nine to 12 months you have a good chance of a person not being given bail, after 12 months any number could play so why are we spending money separately and individually in forensic labs?” Mottley sitting among her regional peers added that “We need the Caricom arrest warrant, we need to have the exchange and rotation of judges…we need to have an enlargement of the jurisdiction of magistrates, we need cooperation on forensics and we need to….deconstruct all the rules in our police service and reconstruct them.”
The discussion on bail for murder reminded those present that for Trinidad and Tobago, the Privy Council dismissed an appeal by the Attorney General to withhold bail for murder. The local Appeal Court ruled that section 5 (1) of the Bail Act of 1994 – which stopped judicial officers from considering bail for those accused of murder – was unconstitutional and was not saved law. It was here TT Attorney General Reginald Armour, S.C. referred to all member states signing on to the CCJ as its final appellate if it wanted to see some change in its legislation in handling such matters. He noted it was their plans in Trinidad and Tobago to remove the preliminary inquiries process and straight to trial through a bill carded for tabling in the lower house, which aims at getting faster prosecutions.
Spurning all these murders has been the issue of weapons entering regional territories, with recent months Caribbean countries joined with Mexico in suing gun manufacturers in the United States. Miguel Reyes, Deputy Legal Adviser at the Secretariat of Foreign Relations Mexico said it was their plans to keep the matter in the judicial arena in hopes of finding a solutions, despite being told that they were responsible for monitoring their chain of commerce exchange.
Guns have been the centre of much talks during day one, with a fired up Mottley chastising any notion of getting the US involved in the fight against guns entering the region saying, “The US has no moral authority to speak to these issues… none!”
Bahamian PM Davis adding that he has “been telling the United States that I’m not going to get involved in their definition or their right to bear arms. But it cannot mean for us in the region, that that right to bear arms also gives the right to trafficking those arms.”
But Jamaican PM Holness countered that the assistance was needed from the US, as they did play a role in the entry of guns to the region, and called for them to partner with the region in a similar vein it had done in the fight against drugs in the region.
At the same time the conference was being wrapped up Trinidad and Tobago’s Opposition leader and former prime minister, Kamla Persad Bissessar took to her political platform after attending the initial meeting on Monday to call out this notion seeing crime and violence as a health emergency, but rather a socio-economic one plaguing governments unable to tackle poverty by failing to upkeep social programmes aimed at empowering at risk communities and youth.
In her message, she questioned the current prime minister and his doing away of several of the programmes initiated under her tenure and questioned what was being done with legislation that were promised implementation with the aim of supporting citizens in protecting themselves.
In recent weeks St.Lucia has been experiencing an upsurge in murders in key areas, prompting assistance from its regional neighbours. Other High-level discussions included Prof. Anthony Harriot, Retired Criminologist, Dr Wendell C. Wallace, Criminologist, who called for more community involvement and to look at it from a social perspective, as gangs were within the community. He urged those present to see it as not an individual problem but one spurned by inequality and injustices meted out among at-risk youth. This at-risk behaviour was also zoomed in from The Bahamas experience where Dr. David Allan shared his research on the impact crime has had on its perpetrators, where he said it was hurt children that grew into dangerous adults, where they lacked the basic need to be safe, feel loved and be empowered, instead they faced shame which led them to a life of crime where they were accepted into gangs. He also spoke of the psyche of a murderer, citing that the brain often went on a high and numb following the act of killing more than one person.
At least seven CARICOM Heads of Government participated in the symposium. To Barbados PM, while commending the TT Prime Minister on the symposium she shared “I do believe we will do ourselves an injustice,…..Yes, Keith, it is called a symposium, but we need to leave Port of Spain with decisions. And there is no reason why we can’t, because you are the lead prime minister on security.”