Independent Senator Paul Richards. -
After Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith took Senator Paul Richards to task for comments on the under-reporting of gender-based violence, Richards has said the commissioner must not have been listening to him properly.
Richards said contrary to the commissioner’s assertions, he at no time identified the police in their current state as complicit in the phenomenon of not following up on reports of gender-based violence. In fact, he praised the police for their new approach.
At the weekly press briefing at the police administration building in Port of Spain on Wednesday, Griffith criticised Richards for saying “reports of gender-based violence have garnered nationwide focus and given rise to several accounts of similar experiences by women whose cases have not been followed up and solved by police.”
Senator Richards: Prisons a breeding ground for gang members
Paul Richards -
Independent Senator Paul Richards said while government is implementing anti-gang legislation for the outside, prisons remain a breeding ground for gang indoctrination. He said this is as a result of an ineffective justice system and questioned whether the Anti-Gang Bill, 2021, would address this issue.
Speaking during debate on the Bill in the Senate on Tuesday, Richards quoted a report from the TT Prison Service which said that 60 per cent of individuals entering the prison system would be indoctrinated into a gang.
“We’re seeking to pass law to deal with gangs outside and we have a prison system that seems to be a more effective contributor to gang activity than outside. Of the people currently in prison custody waiting to stand trial, there are 606 who have been there for less than five years, 289 who have been there for six to ten years, 161 for 11 to 15 years, 18 for 16 to 20 years, and six f