00:00I don't think that the time for a limited curfew is now.
00:05I do believe that a limited curfew, if we look at the last state of emergency that we had,
00:11which was under the UNC, there was, in fact, a state of emergency with a curfew.
00:19That curfew lasted a while, and I think it hurt businesses,
00:22particularly those businesses in the evenings and those that operate at night,
00:27more than anything, and it didn't really get the results.
00:31What it really did is keep the criminals off the streets for a certain period of time.
00:36Charon says what is really required is the dismantling of gangs.
00:41He notes that criminal activity is now spilling over into communities that were not traditionally
00:47hotspot areas, and law-abiding citizens are becoming overwhelmed.
00:52He believes this adds to the perception that the police and government are not doing enough,
00:58and that fear is fuelling the calls for a curfew or state of emergency.
01:03Both the minister and the commissioner of police were hand-selected, they were picked,
01:06they were put into office, and while they were put into office, all this responsibility,
01:13I'm sure it's a very onerous thing to be the head of the TTPS, particularly at this time,
01:20and I'm sure the same must be said about the Ministry of National Security.
01:24Nonetheless, it does not take away from the fact that the responsibility for the safety of the
01:29citizens of Trinidad and Tobago falls squarely upon their shoulders, not upon yours and not upon mine.
01:34Charon notes that many young men are being killed in gang warfare.
01:39He says people will describe them as another bad boy, but they didn't start off that way.
01:46He says the unfortunate truth is that many of them are indoctrinated into this lifestyle.
01:52We continue to see the radicalisation of young men in Trinidad and Tobago,
01:58similar to the radicalisation that was taking place with terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda
02:04and ISIS and so on, where young men were radicalised into fighting a war abroad,
02:09and then when they ended up dead in the battlefield fighting a war that was not their own,
02:14or those that survived that war, they ended up being ostracised from society and unable to
02:20really integrate back into society. And we see a lot of that happening with gangs as well too.
02:26He notes that many young boys also drop out of school and join gangs to earn money. He is
02:32suggesting that perhaps there can be a lowering of the minimum working age to 15 so that the
02:38labour force can absorb these youths. If you're 14 and 15 years old, and you're out of school,
02:45or even if you're in school and you're not going to school that much, and you don't feel like that
02:49is the fit for you, and you're frustrating your parents and so on, or your care providers,
02:54or your relatives, whoever you're staying with, and then suddenly you stop going to school,
03:00they fed up of you, you are disconnected from them, you have no way of earning money,
03:05you have no way of legally earning money because you can't get a job anywhere.
03:08What do you do? Do you stay home and starve? Because everybody says I'm
03:11minding you and we have bills to pay in the house. What are you going to do?
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