THE ODDS AGAINST ERLA

TORONTO is brutally cold but there were only three murders in January.

The Canadian city with a metro population of 6.3 million is also recording limited numbers of other crimes, to the point where the authorities boast that the community is “very safe for tourists.”

There were – wait for it – 39 shooting incidents last year.

The relatively secure environment is the result of an ongoing crusade against violence and a diligent effort to lift residents out of poverty and hardship.

Trinidad and Tobago could have implemented the Canadian-style crime-fighting prescription but we chased away two of their finest police officials Dwayne Gibbs and Jack Ewatski midway into their three-year terms of duty.

The officers from Alberta and Winnipeg respectively had distinguished themselves in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and were brought to Trinidad and Tobago to counter the growing crime scourge, especially gang violence.

Since the hasty departure of Gibbs and Ewatski, there has been a succession of occupants in the local office of top cop, with the colourful Gary Griffith having the soundest performance record.

The demanding and thankless job has now landed upon Erla Harewood-Christopher, who deserves the country’s unrelenting support never mind her strategic error in blanking a sitting of a parliamentary Joint Select Committee.

Ms. Harewood-Christopher may be the last best hope from the current batch of senior officers, and although her retirement date is no more than two years away, we must back her thrust to subdue the gun and gang culture.

But the odds are overwhelmingly against the new police chief.

She has stepped into the commissioner’s office with a similar national landscape to that which greeted Stephen Williams, Gary Griffith and McDonald Jacob.

The national borders are still gapingly porous, to the point where gun and drug running are easy pickings, and hired hands easily emerge from the South American mainland to “put down wuk.”

Sea patrol vehicles are still insufficient and the management of their service is woefully inefficient, with the Coast Guard having a minimal role in the anti-crime offensive.

The big pappies behind the drug trade remain as free as a bird, and are assured of tacit protection from the political authorities.

No one expects Commissioner Harewood-Christopher to bust that dominant cartel.

With high-powered guns and drug turf rivalry fortified, how could the top cop subdue the culture of violence?

In addition, the Rowley Government has not implemented the institutional changes that were faithfully promised in 2015.

Modernising and upgrading the police service has been slow and painstaking, and there is still a critical shortage of key resources, including vehicles and modern technology.

The “new intelligence-led national security architecture” has proven to be just an assembly of manifesto language, while the military has not been integrated into crime-fighting.

The judiciary and prisons are still broken institutions, the former being as slow as molasses, the latter a criminal recruitment centre.

The much-touted “whole-of-government approach” to crime-fighting has been exposed as mere campaign political-speak.

The comprehensive recommendations of the Selwyn Ryan Committee have been ignored even as inner-city communities have taken their warfare into the capital city, reducing Port of Spain to a messy conflict zone.

The Ryan team had warned that worsening violence was “a dagger aimed at the heart” of the city, and had urged a series of measures to get endangered youths into purposeful activities.

On top of that, more and more people are slipping into poverty and inevitably some are seeking the escape route of committing crimes to fund their aspirant lifestyles.

Corruption and nepotism are endemic, to the point where Procurement Regulator Moonilal Lalchan estimates that around $5.2 billion are lost to white-collar crime each year.

Those and other pertinent circumstances are a high hill for Ms. Harewood-Christopher to climb, especially in her short tour of duty and with the public rightfully nipping at her heels.

As a result, she is unlikely to become a transformative police chief.

But hopefully, she makes incremental improvements and impact upon the authorities to revamp the under-performing support agencies.

She should immediately aim for the low-lying fruits of returning rural communities to relative safety, rooting our corrupt police officers, zapping errant motorists, reducing praedial larceny, slashing the incidence of trafficking in persons.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s Broken Windows approach – in which even petty criminals were punished – should be a cornerstone of her leadership.

Yes, Ms. Harewood-Christopher has the toughest job in the land.

But we must all wish her well, support and cheer her on.