Citizens have existed and continue to exist in a state of cognitive dissonance – fearful of crime, but supportive of the government, in a mental clash of feelings with partisan rationalisation. It was so with the PNM; so now with the UNC government.
Therefore, there will be no all-out national attack on crime, as required.
The frightening home invasion at 3 am last week on 53-year-old Vijay Ragoonanan, his wife and five children at SS Erin Road, Siparia, once again tells a heart-rending story. It was near Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s home, but while she has security cameras, Ragoonanan had none, he felt so safe. I am now glad to be alive, he said afterwards.
Back in 2010, he added, when Ms Persad-Bissessar was PM, there were police patrols on his street, but they stopped and did not resume this year when she returned to government.
Fast-moving police patrols have more psychological than crime-reduction effect.
Will these brutal home invasions ever stop, or at least show a consistent decrease, with the daring invaders caught and prosecuted? This time it was six masked gun-toting bandits who beat up Ragoonanan and tied up the rest.
Senior Supt of the Southern Police Division Garvin Simon said: “Because of the prevalence of this type of crime we have been paying attention to it and we will do our best not only to solve it but avoid it becoming a recurrence in the Southern Division.”
The country wishes him and his officers success.
But there is lingering cognitive dissonance. Even the police may agree citizens have heard this before – the inevitable excuses and promises. In fact, it would help public confidence if Police Commissioner Allister Guevarro, in his frequent press releases of crime statistics, said how the detection and prosecution percentages will be increased, at least for murders and home invasions – two of our most frightening crimes.
The country appears to like his leadership style, but here too it suffers from cognitive dissonance. Some of his raw statistics from under the state of emergency (SoE) are encouraging. Last week, around the same time the home invasion against Ragoonanan took place, Mr Guevarro, apart from the 156 Preventive Detention Orders (PDOs), declared, “There is a 42 per cent decrease in homicides, 19 per cent decrease in violent crimes, 11 decrease in other reported crimes, 28 per cent reduction in larceny of motor vehicles. Woundings and shootings are down from 1,508 last year to 980 this year.”
The very articulate commissioner praised the police for acting diligently under the SoE. He pledged the police intended to use the powers under the SoE to their fullest extent to maintain public order and assured things would be put in place to assure continuity on the SoE’s expiration. Quite a tall order to help reduce cognitive dissonance.
But the PNM and other critics are asking: What will happen when the SoE ends? Will the police really continue with similar diligence? Or, as requested, will the limited SoE regulations continue to get such results? What about policing under normal constitutional conditions?
One of the most effective deterrents against crime, especially murders and home invasions, is a high detection percentage. This is where real police performance proves itself.
Criminals first explore the vulnerability of a house. They attack when they feel it is safe to do so. They break in, frighten residents by shouting, threatening with guns or cutlasses, and often beating, if not killing them. They steal cash, jewellery and other selected items.
They do all this after assessing the likelihood of being caught. They too have an idea of the detection rate. And they leave the victims, if alive, with long years of torturous trauma.
The home invasions have become so fearsome and damaging that the UNC government plans to give citizens a Christmas gift of “stand your ground” legislation in the Home Invasion (Self-Defence and Defence of Property) Bill 2025.
This proposed law, with widespread support in the circumstances, essentially decreases the rights of a home invader while increasing the self-defence rights of a law-abiding resident, beyond current self-defence provisions. We will see how it works.
When the Muslimeen attacked Parliament in July 1990, a wounded PM ANR Robinson instructed the army to “attack with full force.” That was a “Parliament invasion.” The new self-defence laws will enable lawfully armed residents, sensing clear and present danger, to attack with full force any armed house invader. There should be an interesting debate over the elusive balance.
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