HELP BEFORE HANDCUFFS: T&T’S GOVERNMENT CANNOT PUNISH ITS WAY OUT OF THE TRINIDAD CRIME CRISIS

The Trinidad crime crisis demands a government that acts before children become victims, recruits or suspects. Arrests and punishment cannot substitute for education, counselling and steady support. By the time the handcuffs arrive, someone may already be injured, a family traumatised and a young life derailed. Waiting until then is an expensive way to discover that help was needed earlier.

Consider Akeel Timothy. He told Guardian Media that, after two CSEC attempts, he had only one pass. His mother encouraged him to enter the Military-Led Academic Training programme, MiLAT. He graduated in 2017 with six passes overall and later became an entrepreneur. He credits instructors who invested time in helping him learn. His account shows what sustained support can mean to one person.

That is the value of giving a young person another chance: someone invests time, ability begins to develop, and options open up.

Government must protect the public from violence. But a child should not have to become an emergency before the state treats their needs as urgent.

The Trinidad crime crisis needs help before punishment

Former education minister Dr Nyan Gadsby-Dolly has raised serious allegations about expired contracts in the Student Support Services Division and the weakening of remedial education. Her warning concerns the professionals who help schools address difficulties that classroom discipline alone cannot resolve.

The concern extends beyond the opposition’s account. In reporting published in early September, TTUTA president Crystal Ashe raised the non-renewal of contracts for school social workers and guidance counsellors as schools prepared to reopen. The union’s statement gives the staffing question added urgency.

It does not independently prove Gadsby-Dolly’s absolute claim that no expired contracts have been renewed since April 2025. Government should publish the figures that settle that question.

In the meantime, treating these posts as administrative housekeeping misses their purpose. A referral needs a professional who can respond. A child struggling with grief, conflict or persistent absence needs timely attention. The work of prevention takes place in those ordinary appointments, conversations and follow-ups, often long before anybody calls the police.

A budget line cannot counsel a child

The Ministry of Education’s published remedial policy identified 80 primary and 26 secondary schools for focused support. Its design included learning-support assistants, additional social workers and guidance personnel, after-school assistance, vacation revision and restorative practices. These were specific interventions with defined educational purposes.

The published 2026 recurrent estimates retain TT$8 million for Remedial Education. That matches the original 2025 estimate, but is TT$4.4 million, or approximately 35.5 per cent, below the revised 2025 estimate of TT$12.4 million. The figures appear on printed page 201.

Those comparisons matter. The budget line was not erased. Equally, a budget allocation is no assurance that an after-school class is running or a child’s referral has been answered.

For the Trinidad crime crisis, the question is what children can actually access: which interventions are operating, how many places exist, who staffs them, and how long families wait. Government should answer in services delivered. A programme listed on paper cannot sit beside a struggling student and help with the work.

A young person cannot put their future under review

MiLAT illustrates the stakes of interruption. On June 30, CNC3 reported Defence Minister Wayne Sturge’s confirmation that the programme had been temporarily suspended while government examined its financial viability and restructuring. He rejected descriptions of permanent closure and said the intention was to accommodate the remaining Form Four cohort. That explanation deserves to be recorded accurately.

Government has a responsibility to examine cost and effectiveness. An inherited programme is not entitled to permanent funding simply because a previous administration created it. But a responsible review must account for the young people already depending on the service.

Who continues their lessons? Who provides supervision and support? What happens while the organisational chart is being redrawn?

The June suspension does not prove a subsequent increase in crime. It does establish why continuity matters. A programme can be redesigned while government protects participants from avoidable disruption. The public should see the transition arrangements, delivery dates and outcomes. Calling an interruption temporary does not, by itself, meet the immediate needs of a young person whose education has been interrupted.

Government’s own school policy demands prevention

The government’s 2026 National School Code of Conduct makes an argument its public crime debate should take seriously. It endorses early intervention and restorative support, and warns that overreliance on punitive discipline can damage student engagement and longer-term outcomes. Prevention is already part of the ministry’s stated approach.

Education Minister Dr Michael Dowlath has also presented encouraging figures. In March, he reported violence-related suspensions falling from 560 to 455, an 18.8 per cent decline, under a strategy he described as combining school police, counselling, psychosocial support and restorative practices. Those are the minister’s reported results.

They should be acknowledged. They do not isolate the contribution of policing or demonstrate that support services can safely be weakened.

Indeed, the government’s own explanation makes the case for keeping all those elements working. If counselling belongs in the strategy, staffing it should carry corresponding urgency. A policy that recognises the value of early help must be matched by professionals with the time and resources to provide it.

Tougher punishment is no substitute for effective protection

Punishment has a place. People who assault, extort or terrorise others must face lawful consequences, and children and teachers need protection from immediate threats. Prevention cannot become an excuse for leaving victims exposed.

But the evidence challenges the belief that increasing punishment severity is enough to deter offending. The US National Institute of Justice’s research summary places greater weight on the likelihood of being caught. Effective policing can prevent harm; harsher penalties alone are a different proposition. The distinction matters for public policy.

School support does another necessary job: helping children remain engaged in education, work through conflict and access assistance before problems escalate. None of that means poverty, academic difficulty or family stress makes criminality inevitable. Children deserve support in their own right.

The government’s challenge is to protect people at every stage. Investigate threats. Enforce the law. Keep schools safe. And make sure a child needing help can receive it before a crisis develops. A country serious about reducing victims should put serious effort into preventing the harm that creates them.

Crime prevention in Trinidad and Tobago has local evidence

This argument has evidence from Trinidad itself. An IDB evaluation examined Project REASON, a Cure Violence intervention operating in Port of Spain communities between 2015 and 2017. Its quasi-experimental analysis estimated violent crime roughly 45 per cent lower in intervention communities than in a constructed comparison area two years after implementation. The evaluation found substantial benefits from targeted violence prevention.

That is a community-level finding, not a claim that the programme reduced national crime by 45 per cent. Nor does it prove that every school or youth initiative deserves expansion. It demonstrates why prevention should be tested, measured and taken seriously.

CARICOM and UNDP’s May 2026 framework similarly treats crime as a development and public-health challenge requiring prevention and coordinated action alongside security measures. The regional direction is clear.

For the Trinidad crime crisis, government should fund interventions according to need and evidence, evaluate the results, improve what underperforms and expand what works. A programme’s political parentage should not determine a child’s access to it. Neither should an attractive launch substitute for evidence that it helps.

Measure who receives help before harm is done

This problem did not begin with a flawless system. TTUTA was calling for more school social workers and counsellors in October 2024, before the change of government. The weakness has a history. The current administration is responsible for what it does to address it.

TriniLulz’s earlier examination of the crime fight and the next gang recruit called for prevention to receive serious attention. Now the public needs evidence of delivery: filled support posts, school coverage, referral waiting times, functioning remedial classes and continuity for young people affected by programme changes.

Government should publish those measures alongside enforcement results. Families should be able to find out where help is available and how quickly their child can receive it. That would make the promise of prevention something people can assess.

The Trinidad crime crisis will demand sustained effort across policing, education, families and communities. Government cannot punish its way around the need to do that work.

A serious crime policy should reach a child while there is still a future to protect, and before there is a victim to mourn. Help before handcuffs must become a standard of delivery.

Want the bigger picture? Explore our Trinidad Crime & Security hub for dashboards, explainers, updates, and deeper coverage of one of the country’s most urgent ongoing stories.