Category Archives: Crime in T&T

Crime in T&T, General T&T, Law, Media, PNM, Politics, Race and Identity

The Road Make to Walk…

2 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
August 06, 2019

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeLast Sunday, four of the five Sunday columnists of this newspaper wrote about the crime problem that confronts the nation. The Sunday Guardian also published a long investigative piece on the subject. On Monday, Archbishop Charles Jason Gordon talked about the pervasiveness of crime and concluded that ours is “a culture of disrespect.” At a fundamental level, it is more an economic-philosophical than a moral question. Left unattended and incorrectly analyzed, it will lead to greater degeneracy.
Continue reading The Road Make to Walk… →

Crime in T&T, General T&T

We are all in this Together

4 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 30, 2019

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeWith things getting hotter and deadlier, one recognizes how far our society has gone out of joint. With criminals finding more ingenious ways to avenge their grievances—like taking a boat from Sea Lots to catch their targets unaware in Las Cuevas—one wonders if the government and/or civic organizations are as ingenious as the criminals in getting the society back on an even keel.
Continue reading We are all in this Together →

Crime in T&T, Drug Trade, General T&T, Police, Violence

Crime and punishment T&T style

6 Comments

By Raffique Shah
July 25, 2019

Raffique ShahOozing from the barrels of blood that flowed from the bullet-ridden corpses of last week’s 24 murder victims and almost as many who suffered serious to critical gunshot wounds were several important lessons that we may choose to ignore, to our peril. Violent crimes have spiralled out of control, and most people are inured to the blood and gore that once shocked us. Now, spectators calmly record the macabre murders on their smart-phone cameras, video-clips to be uploaded on the Intrernet. Some achieve viral videos ratings, providing entertainment for huge audiences on social media.
Continue reading Crime and punishment T&T style →

Crime in T&T, General T&T, PNM, Politics

While Rome Burned…

3 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 09, 2019

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeLast Sunday I wrote that in spite of our material prosperity, our spiritual being is diminished in the process. I noted: “We cannot walk the streets as freely as we want, we are overwhelmed by corruption and crime, and our interaction as social beings has been tragically reduced.”

That evening Mount Lambert residents witnessed bullets flying all over the place as two gangs took on each other. One resident said: “‘[It was] like a scene out of a movie in which warring factions traded bullets with each other…. It showed that criminals were becoming more and more brazen since they no longer had any fear of committing crimes in broad daylight and for any and every one to see” (Express, July 1).
Continue reading While Rome Burned… →

Crime in T&T, General T&T, Law, Murder, PNM, Politics, Violence

Cultural & Environmental Violence

3 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 20, 2019

“I bear a grudge that we in Trinidad do not pay enough attention to our heroes. They are the people that will give Trinidad life.”

—Beryl McBurnie quoted in Judy Raymond, Beryl McBurnie

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeThere has been much coverage about the horrible murder of the prime minister’s boyhood friend John Miles and his wife Eulyn at the hands of a monstrously deranged person. This dastardly act led the PM to bemoan: “What have we become? What are we producing as ‘the next generation’? John and I grew up together in poverty, with pride, but violence and criminality were never part of our life” (Express, May 4).
Continue reading Cultural & Environmental Violence →

Court, Crime in T&T, Drug Trade, General T&T, Police

Jamming the Poor, Still

2 Comments

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
May 13, 2019

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIn 1981, after teaching in the United States for about ten years, I decided to return home for good. To do so I had to erect a personal library so I could do my work. Without my library I would be lost, so I asked my first cousin—one of those cousins who possesses the skills to do everything—to build a library at the back of my mother’s house.
Continue reading Jamming the Poor, Still →

corruption, Court, Crime in T&T, General T&T, Politics, UNC

Alleged corruption hurts UNC again

10 Comments

…ex MP Collin Partap slams party

By Gail Alexander
May 06, 2019 – guardian.co.tt

Gerald Ramdeen, Anand RamloganCorruption allegations put the People’s Partnership (PP)/United National Congress (UNC) administration out of office in the 2010 general polls and more allegations or corruption-related charges against UNC members could well keep the UNC out of government in the 2020 general election.

It’s not a PNMite saying that. It’s former UNC Cumuto/Manzanilla MP and minister of state, Collin Partap doing so.
Continue reading Alleged corruption hurts UNC again →

Crime in T&T, General T&T, PNM, Police

Wage war against criminals, not the media

11 Comments

By Raffique Shah
April 30, 2019

Raffique ShahGary Griffith’s unilateral declaration of a “cold war” on the conventional media in general, and the CCN Group in particular, was as predictable as it was inevitable. As a garrulous ex-military officer whose larger-than-life public image was literally forged by and in the mass media, he failed to understand that unlike publicists who are paid to promote a product or personality, successful media houses thrive on their fierce independence in disseminating news and views.
Continue reading Wage war against criminals, not the media →

Crime in T&T, International, USA, Venezuela

At UN, Anya Parampil speaks on Venezuela regime change war

4 Comments

‘The mask of the US is off’: At UN, Anya Parampil speaks on Venezuela regime change war
By The Grayzone – YouTube – March 19, 2019

The Grayzone’s Anya Parampil spoke about the US-led regime change war on Venezuela and the right-wing opposition’s use of violence, at a UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva on March 19, on a panel titled “Humanitarian crisis in Venezuela: Propaganda vs. reality.”
Continue reading At UN, Anya Parampil speaks on Venezuela regime change war →

corruption, Crime in T&T, General T&T

Do not politicise war against crime

5 Comments

By Raffique Shah
February 20, 2019

Raffique ShahBuried in the last paragraph of a document titled “Interim Gang Report 2018”, which was compiled by the Organised Crime and Intelligence Unit of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service and featured prominently in the last Sunday Express, was one of the main reasons why criminal gangs conduct their savagery with impunity, making a mockery of all attempts by new Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith to rein in their murderous rampage.

Said paragraph concludes: “…Extensive co-ordination between the TTPS and the T&T Prisons Service is crucial to expand investigations and gather intelligence to address the growing threat gangs pose to T&T.”
Continue reading Do not politicise war against crime →