Criminal psychologist, Rene Cummings says while the incidence of sexual offences is high in T&T, the criminal justice system here is not training magistrates and judges to prevent accused people from being granted bail.
Cummings said that during a presentation at the National Library, Abercromby Street, Port-of-Spain, yesterday.
She was referring to a recent matter where someone charged with a sexual offence was granted bail and the individual repeated the offence after being granted bail.
Cummings said: “The criminal justice system is not even training its magistrates and judges to understand sexual offending and to understand paedophilia and understanding that you don’t give bail to these people.”
She said when bail was granted to an accused offender “what you are doing is putting people’s children at risk.”
She said the offence was not a question of someone fondling their private parts, but a question of public safety and sexual offences which often ended in death.
Cummings said the country did not have a system to track sexual offenders despite the fact that many deportees to this country were charged with sexual offences.
Cummings said the politicians were allowing their ego to affect adversely the fight against crime in this country.
She said many of the people elected to run the country were not equipped with the skill sets to design the policy required to deal with crime.
She said there was “so much ego tripping” when individuals did not want to get the right individuals to help them get the job done because it would be found that they did not do it on their own.
Commenting on gang violence in T&T, Cummings said: “We have seen it all in T&T,” adding that crime was being committed “buffet style.”
She said because of the prevalence of crime in this country “the anticipation of death from violence is worse than death itself.”
Cummings said there was distrust of law enforcement in this country and the police must do more to correct that perception, adding that there was need for more energetic and vibrant leadership within the police service
She said law enforcement officers must investigate all gang-related killings even after the murder suspects were killed.
“Why do the police stop an investigation when they believe the killer has been murdered. We cannot do these things because these contribute to the country’s low detection rate.”
Cummings said a high detection rate brought confidence and public trust in law enforcement, but a low detection rate kept a society existing and believing that the police were not legitimate.
Cummings said: “Police must actively—and we are not seeing this—and aggressively pursue each case to be solved and not because it has been stereotypically deemed gang related means it is not worthy of a thorough investigation.”
Cummings said while it was good to remove illegal guns from the streets it was more important to remove the motivation for the need for the weapon, adding that the traditional investigative techniques being used by the police were no longer effective.
She also said there was need for more analytical support to be given to the police.
“We have some very sick people in our society who are perpetrating some very sick crimes,” she insisted.
Cummings predicted that increasing the police/army presence on the streets in the wake of a crime spike would not work.
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