The number of violent robberies have increased

The incidents of criminal activity over the last five years in Trinidad and Tobago support the widely held perception that criminals are terrorizing citizens, creating a climate of fear and threatening to entrench a sub-culture on what is otherwise a peaceful and prosperous economy based on crude oil and very generous deposits of natural gas and the known joie de verve of the Trini culture.

In 1999, 136 people were kidnapped, that figure jumped to 236 in 2003, at the end of May 2004, 48 persons have been snatched with the kidnappers demanding a ransom.

Murders increased alarmingly from 93 in 1999 to 229 during 2003; in the first 4 months of this year, 78 people have been the victims of murderers.

Rapes and acts of incest numbered 476 in 1999 and peaked at 641 in 2002 with a small decline in 2003, for this year so far, 195 women, young girls, including a couple of toddlers, have been brutally raped.

Violent robberies amounted in 1999 to 3,629; they increased steadily over the individual years and number to 4,726 in 2003; for the year 1,273 nationals, with a growing number of foreigners, have been robbed.

You have unemployment; no on-the-job training programmes; no skills for we on the block; that does cause man to stick a "piece" (gun) in he waist and go an look for ah living.   Reformed criminal Kevin Prieto

"There has been a culture shift among young people, and we're yet to pin down all aspects of it, but we know that involved is a drug culture and the "badman" phenomenon," crime economist/researcher, Anselm Richards told the BBC Caribbean Service noting that 75 per cent of the crime relates to property loss.

However he noted that while "need" is a major motivating factor for crime amongst young people living on the margins, there is significant white-collar crime (representing “greed”) with a number of former ministers and senior government officials now before the court for fraud amounting to over TT$140 million.

"Sometimes is peer pressure to have TT$900.00 sneakers; and in that you have unemployment; no on-the-job training programmes; no skills for we on the block; that does cause man to stick a "piece" (gun) in he waist and go an look for ah living," reformed young criminal Kevin Prieto told BBC Caribbean Service by way of accounting for criminal activity.

The 24-year-old, who was first incarceration at 16 in a youth facility and subsequently graduated to the State prisons for robberies, says in many instances young boys are in families without fathers and sometimes without mothers "and he is the only bread-winner for his small brothers and sisters, he decide it easier to do crime to get some money."

Richards said criminal activity is being driven primarily by drugs and the attended trafficking in firearms to protect the drugs.

And while Prieto said that often young criminals do not set out to commit violence, in fact, he says, in many instances young criminals fire-off guns in fright when something goes wrong in a robbery or kidnapping, crime analyst Richards said there was a "culture of violence associated with the guns and built into the criminal activity."

There has been a rash of indiscipline and acts of violence in parts of the school system: students stabbing, beating each other and doing the same to teachers and even security guards posted on the compounds.

The "deportee phenomenon" - hundreds of persons born here but having lived most of their adult lives in the United States and deported for some form of criminal involvement, is said to be also contributing to crime, with the deportees bringing sophisticated techniques to the local environment.

TRINIDAD & TOBAGO CRIME STATS Kidnappings: 236 in 2003 Violent Robbery: 4,726 in 2003 Murders: 229 in 2003

Present and past governments have launched several offences against the criminal activities. Thousands of people have been rounded-up in "Zero Tolerance" and "Anaconda" police raids.

Hundreds have been charged with robberies, drug trafficking, murder, rape and the range of criminal activities, there has even been talk of the declaration of a state of emergency and a night curfew.

The present government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars over the last 24 months in social welfare and training programmes in deprived urban centres known to breed young criminals.

Yet there has been no let up and the Opposition has criticised Government spending saying that it has contributed to infighting amongst the gangs for the spoils and put money in the hands of young people to buy guns.

The Opposition and others have also severely criticised Prime Minister Patrick Manning for meeting with "community leaders" - gang leaders, in an attempt to broker peace agreements amongst them.

During the late 1990s, the then government executed over a three-day period Dole Chadee, reputed to have been the leader of a notorious cocaine cartel, and eight of his henchmen convicted for murder.

Critics have however pointed out that Chadee notwithstanding; those with capital who are said to finance drug trafficking and gun running have evaded capture.

Responding to the criticism that "big pappies" remain untouched, succeeding national security ministers have said that the hard evidence to link the so-called financiers of the crime to the street operators is not easy to gather.

In this regard, commissioners of police, criminologists and representatives of police associations, amongst others, have noted the incapacity of the police working without modern scientific crime-fighting tools, poorly trained, motivated and managed.

The vastly over-crowded prison system, designed in the colonial period to seek vengeance rather than reform, has also been deemed as breeding grounds especially for young offenders, taken advantage of and taught the trade by hardened criminals.   Tony Fraser

To compound that situation, going back many years to Scotland Yard reports contracted by the government here, police officers from senior superintendents to lowly constables have been reported to be deeply involved in crime.

Several low-ranked officers have been jailed and others are awaiting trial on kidnapping, robbery, even murder.

Similarly, chief justices going back over the last 15 years have protested the serious shortages of resources, broken-down 60-year old court houses, long-hand note-taking by magistrates and judges and in one up-roar that attracted international attention, Chief Justice Michael de Labastide claimed that then attorney general, Ramesh Maharaj and the government, were attempting to infringe on the independence of the judiciary.

Crime has not escaped the ever-present conflict between the Afro and Indo Trinidadians. Led by political leader of the Indo-based United National Congress, Basdeo Panday, the head of the major Hindu organisation Sat Maharaj and the local chapter of the Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin, the charge has been that Indians (who make up 40 per cent of the population) are being targeted for robbery, kidnapping and murder.

"We doh have race in mind when we going out; we looking for people who have "bread"," said Prieto who now works with young people to help them to follow his example and turn around their lives.

Richards is also in disagreement with the view that any ethnic group is being specially targeted. However, he said his own research has shown that in a trade in which violence is inherent, Indians are the major planters/producers of marijuana, while Africans are the ones involved in the distribution and consumption of the drugs.

The vastly over-crowded prison system, designed in the colonial period to seek vengeance rather than reform, has also been deemed as breeding grounds especially for young offenders, taken advantage of and taught the trade by hardened criminals.

Reacting under pressure to do something meaningful about crime, Prime Minister Patrick Manning has been heavily criticised for arguing that criminal activity is confined to internecine war amongst gangs and that the average citizen is not threatened by the violence - in one instance he referred to the shooting of an innocent victim in a drive-by shooting as "collateral damage".

Prime Minister Manning has been insisting that the present refusal of the Opposition to support anti-crime legislation, first proposed during its period in government, has constrained the Government’s fight against crime.

The Bills, in need of a special majority in the Parliament not held by the government for passage, seek to reform the police service, make it difficult for repeat offenders to secure bail and to increase the severity of jail terms for kidnappers.

Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday said the Bills must come as part of an overall design to reform the 28-year old national constitution if the government is to get his support. Panday claimed that the present constitutional arrangements allow Indians to be discriminated against as citizens.

PM Manning has been criticised for the crime situation

A non-political commentator such as President of the Police Second Division Association, Inspector Christopher Holder, has called for increased powers for the Police Commission to reward and discipline officers and tools for officers to do the job.

Richards has called for an all out programme to withdraw the illegal guns off the street and a shutting down of the country's borders to prevent new firearms from entering the porous coastline.

In addition to the tightening of personal and home security, citizen reaction has ranged through groups of businessmen offering rewards to those who phone-in anonymous information on crime, to aggressive community watch groups and the most recent community effort, headed by retired head of the defence force, Commodore Anthony Franklin.

The latter group is planning to moblise communities across the country to put pressure on government and opposition to pass legislation, to devise community measures to counter crime and even to take up the challenge of providing support for young people and communities "at risk".