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CCNTV6
  • 1 year ago
Economist and Senior Policy Advisor Dr. Vanus James examines the reported increase in gun crimes in Tobago.

He was speaking on the Tv6 Morning Edition on Wednesday.

More from Nicole M Romany
Transcript
00:00Four lives were snuffed out in a shooting incident in Black Rock, Tobago, in the early
00:05hours of Monday morning. Three men died at the scene, the fourth at hospital.
00:11Over the past months, the escalating gun crimes on the island have raised concerns for many,
00:17with Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley calling for a larger deployment of officers from Trinidad
00:22to work in Tobago to assist with criminal activity.
00:26Today, Dr Varnes-James tells us it's the cross-culture.
00:30I think the gang culture must have been associated in some way with the availability of opportunities
00:38cross-island, across the two islands, between the two islands. So the criminal enterprise
00:46that is evolving in the country, Tobago, as Rowley was saying quite correctly, is not
00:52immune from.
00:53Dr James believes that the existence of gangs in Black Rock and Bethel and similar places
00:59is occurring due to the failure to transform the national economy, so criminality becomes
01:04a way people try to make money.
01:07Tobagonians are finding themselves under pressure and they're looking for ways, for outlets.
01:12And one of those outlets would be migration to Trinidad. But one of them would be collaboration
01:17with criminal elements in Trinidad to find a way to make a living. So it's not a mystery
01:23The key question is, what are we failing to do, both in Tobago and in Trinidad, to
01:27deal with crime? The Prime Minister's been in power now for near 10 years. And at no
01:32stage am I aware of him wanting to run a society in which crime is increasing. But crime increased
01:39dramatically over his period, over his 10 years.
01:44He says focus and tighter security must be on the transport between the islands, as it
01:50was before, if the movement of guns and drugs is to be intercepted.
01:54In those days, you couldn't take the boat and go to Trinidad without proper screening
02:00so people could see what you're moving. And you couldn't come from Trinidad to Tobago
02:04without properly filing what you're moving and so on. But in those days, of course, there
02:09was proper documentation and recording of the contents of the traffic. Nowadays, we've
02:16abandoned that project and we simply could jump on and you open your trunk and they look
02:21and it's not a serious effort to understand what's the movement.
02:25He also believes that education, or the lack of education in some cases,
02:30is a major contributory factor.
02:33You have large numbers of people who have none of the normal skills you need to build
02:39a viable, creative, dynamic economy, to do innovation and all of those things.
02:45And apart from the fact that we tend to have inadequate policies to deal with them when
02:51they travel, like in the music industry and so on, apart from all of that, these fundamental
02:57structures do not provide you with the tools required to tackle crime prevention properly.
03:05Remember, it's prevention that will be the main way you will bring
03:10the growth of crime under control.
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