@InHindsight
"T&T is broken; it is dysfunctional, and changes are required to improve.’”
Trinidad and Tobago has opened the year with a new government, a new Commissioner of Police, and a country watching closely to see whether “change” means something practical or just political theatre.
In his first public comments, the Commissioner explained that under the State of Emergency (SOE), authorities have detained gang leaders and other criminals already known to law enforcement. It’s a blunt approach, but one that many citizens have been quietly asking for: remove the people who are widely believed to be directing violence, extortion, and intimidation, and give communities a chance to breathe.
So far, the early signs suggest it’s working. The level of serious crime and the pace of murders appear to have eased. No one should pretend an SOE is a cure-all, but it does underline something Trinidad and Tobago has learned repeatedly: when key gang figures are taken off the streets, killings and violent reprisals often drop. Statistics have shown this pattern before, and the public is seeing it again now.
The bigger test is still ahead. The SOE is expected to expire at the end of January, and that deadline raises an obvious question: what happens when the emergency measures end? If the reduction in violence is mainly the result of temporary powers, then the country could find itself right back where it started. If, however, the SOE buys time for stronger investigations, better prosecutions, improved intelligence work, and sustained policing, then it may mark the beginning of a longer shift in public safety.
Crime, however, is only one piece of a much larger problem. The economic numbers tell their own story, and they are hard to dress up. The state is, by most practical definitions, financially strapped, so strapped that it must borrow to fund its budget. Public debt is estimated to be around $140 billion, and that figure reportedly does not include additional obligations tied up in NDAs with China, which some estimates put at another $10 billion. Debt servicing is projected at roughly $15 billion, against a national budget of about $55 billion. That means a large slice of national spending is already committed before the government even gets to basic priorities like healthcare, education, infrastructure, or social support.
At the same time, the country’s traditional foreign exchange engine has weakened. Over the last decade, natural gas production has fallen by close to 45%, cutting into forex earnings and tightening pressure across the economy. Less energy output means less revenue, less flexibility, and fewer “easy” options to patch holes with.
This is the reality the new administration has inherited: a security crisis that can’t be solved by slogans and a fiscal situation that leaves little room for expensive experiments. It will be a year of managing limits, juggling public expectations, rising costs, and the uncomfortable mathematics of debt.
Meanwhile, some communities have been living in a kind of slow emergency for years. Over the last decade, the country averaged more than 500 murders annually, an astonishing figure for a small nation. Many of the areas most associated with the previous government’s strongholds remain among the most poverty-stricken, with living conditions that feel stuck in an earlier era and opportunities that never truly arrive. In these environments, crime isn’t random; it becomes organized, entrenched, and, in too many cases, normalized.
That is why the current crackdown matters. Detaining gang leaders may not fix poverty, rebuild broken institutions, or restore economic growth, but it can create breathing room. And breathing room is what allows schools to function, businesses to operate, witnesses to cooperate, and ordinary people to live with less fear.
January will bring a decision point. When the SOE expires, the country will see whether this is a temporary lull or the start of sustained order. The public isn’t just looking for arrests; it’s looking for a plan that lasts.
Sarge