Post :#6: Crime

The need for.....Police... presence in the City!

Mobile Police Unit along the street

Police presence on the streets of Port of Spain are indeed necessary as a result of the rampant crime rates that are constantly increasing day after day. The city of Port of Spain and its immediate environs have a significantly higher crime rate than any other part of Trinidad.  These urban sprawls include Belmont, Laventille, Gonzales, East Port of Spain and Sealots. Criminals from these poorer, depressed areas of the district often bring their crimes to the city. These crimes include murders on a daily basis, inter -gang warfare, theft, illegal drug use and other violent crimes. 

Police patrol through the streets to aid in the crime fighting
process! 

Mobile Police Patrol

I believe the reason for the high crime rates afflicted with the city are as a result of the poverty problem in the surrounding areas. The level of socioeconomic inequality that currently exists in East Port of Spain is the reason for the poverty. Socioeconomic inequality in East Port of Spain may be linked to the process of deindustrialization.  Hall and Barrett (2012, 77) described the effects of deindustrialization as one of the reasons for the growth of criminal economies in urban areas. East Port of Spain, in particular,  Laventille is characterized by high rates of  unemployment especially among the youths of society, which is may be a result of the relocation of many manufacturing industries in which many people in the region would have relied on for employment opportunities. As a result, many young people have turned to a life of crime in order to financially support themselves and their growing families. They therefore engage in criminal activities such as selling illegal drugs, prostitution and forming gangs, which may afford them the opportunity of the rich, self sustaining members of West Port of Spain.

Crime doesn't follow poverty, it follows concentrations of poverty-Reuben Greenberg.

Therefore, instead of the youths venturing onto the Streets of Port of Spain to beg, and in time, resort to vagrancy or depending on the State for assistance, they do what pays the bills, however it may risk losing their lives.

"Cities arise out of man's social needs and multiply both modes and their methods of expression. In the city remote forces and influences intermingle with the local: their conflicts are no less significant than their harmonies. And here, through the concentration of the means of intercourse in the market and the meeting place, alternative modes of living present themselves: the deeply rutted ways of the village cease to be coercive and the ancestral goals cease to be all sufficient: strange men and women, strange interests, and stranger gods loosen the traditional ties of blood and neighbourhood."- Lewis Mumford, 1938, page 4.

This article basically tells the story of the population of East Port of Spain. As a result of the needs, they meet in the city, and engage themselves in crime causing all the goals of their ancestors to change as they change their attitudes and actions to suit their needs. They forget about the bonds they had and make their gang leaders, their god.

        

Visible Police Presence on the Streets themselves along

Adam Smith Square.

Crime and the perception of crime continues to hamper the economic and social developments of the city. Police are also needed in the city to regulate other problems such as traffic congestion as a result of breaking street signs and illegal parking along the streets themselves. These Policemen are also there to warn of vagrants as they curse and try to attack the pedestrians. 

Although the increased presence of Police patrols within the city may help to reduce the crime in the city, the issue at hand is actually the poverty problem in the poorer districts of East Port of Spain. These issues must be dealt with firstly to curb the high crime rates of the city.

Residents welcome Police presence 24/7

http://www.newsday.co.tt/crime_and_court/0,188103.html

Must Watch!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOcSHUuylDQ