00:00Criminologist Dr. Randy Sipasad tells the Morning Edition, the meeting, which is said
00:06to include talks tied to regional security and cooperation with the U.S., is vital.
00:12According to him, ties with key partners are essential as the flow of illegal contraband
00:18continues to complicate national and regional safety efforts.
00:23There is and continues to be a flow of drugs, a flow of firearms throughout the Caribbean
00:29region. And it's therefore opportune for leaders of the Caribbean region to meet with the United
00:36States, but with other governments as well who have an interest in the security of the region
00:42to try to map out strategies, to try to anticipate what some of the threats could be to the region
00:49and to specific countries. Dr. Sipasad adds that tensions with Venezuela
00:54and other shared threats make ongoing engagement with the United States highly relevant at this
01:00moment. We put preemptive measures in place should they arise and we plan. We don't wait for something
01:06to happen because we have very powerful neighbors who I dare say might be very angry at this point
01:12with us. And I'm talking about Venezuela and the region itself sits between Cuba and Venezuela.
01:18So certainly it is something that is worth doing.
01:22Back at home now, he warns that crime patterns after states of emergency often rebound,
01:29stressing that it is not the SOE itself that reduces crime, but the intelligence coordination,
01:36data use and protective services collaboration implemented during these periods.
01:41The criminologist also says there is potential value in the collapsed zone of special operations bill
01:49as a more effective crime fighting tool if properly applied.
01:53The core of it really has to do with the services that come after, where you start to bring the
01:59psychologists, the social workers, the educators, the other professionals into communities that need it the
02:06most right. So it's not about violating human rights. It's not about just locking up people or shooting
02:12people. It's not about any of that. It's about creating calm in certain spaces which typically do
02:19not have that calm so that people can come in and really start to unravel and undo this generational issue
02:28that we face.
02:29On the controversial police shooting of Josiah Samaru, Dr. Sipasad says he is confident the police
02:36service will conduct a thorough investigation, noting two key legal principles. The subjective,
02:42whether the officers genuinely believed there was a threat and the objective, whether a reasonable
02:49officer would have acted the same way and if use of force policy was applied. However,
02:54Dr. Sipasad cautions against drawing conclusions based on the video alone, saying all factors must be
03:03considered before judgment is made. Nicole M. Romany, TV6 News
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