Caption: Screengrab of Professor Selwyn Cudjoe at the Anti-Crime Talks on Monday
By Prior Beharry
TWO Thousand and Twenty-Four should be declared the “Year of Crime.”
This according to Professor Selwyn Cudjoe speaking at the Opposition Leader’s Anti-Crime Talks on Monday at the Chaguanas Borough Corporation.
He said, “We should declare 2024 ‘The Year of Crime’ in which we direct all of our energies, resources, and insights to end this crime wave.
“In this way, we signal to the population that making the country safe is the primary business of the nation. It is not the exclusive concern of the government, the police, the army, or the magistrates. It concerns all of us.”
This was part of 16 suggestions he made to deal with the current crime situation in Trinidad and Tobago.
He also said that the community must be involved.
Cudjoe said, “To investigate the crime problem we must go to the communities where the people live, where they can offer their ideas freely in their own setting, speaking with one another as family.”
He said the judiciary must be strengthened.
Cudjoe said, “We cannot solve the crime problem if the judiciary does not function efficiently at an optimal level. No case, no matter how difficult or sophisticated, should take years to be disposed of.”
He said, “Part of the problem lies in the fact that after 62 years of independence the judiciary must rely completely on the state and the Ministry of Finance in order to perform its most mundane tasks associated with the delivery of its core mission—the administration of justice. The time is ripe for to hold the judiciary to account in the administration of justice. To do so we must allow them unfettered access to financial resources and the consolidated fund.”
Cudjoe said parents must be held responsible for the crimes their juvenile children commit.
