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On 31 October 2025, Attorney General Senator John Jeremie SC gave the House of Representatives the Government’s rationale for an additional extension of the existing state of emergency, first declared on 18 July and extended for three months by resolution of the House on 28 July.
He referred again, citing the Commissioner of Police (CoP), to “a criminal syndicate whose command centre is lodged within Trinidad and Tobago’s prisons”.
Photo: Office of the Parliament 2025.
He informed the House that “the amalgamated gang leadership was removed from the Maximum Security Prison” and that “those prisoners who were initially removed are now housed, in the main, at a secure location.”
The additional extension, he stated, was required to continue operations “to dismantle” criminal gangs.
The references above complete the summary that I began in last week’s column of the rationales for the three periods of states of emergency under which we have been living for the majority of this year.
(via Skynews.)
As indicated, such a summary was a necessary prelude to examining the touted successes of these states of emergency and what might happen when we are no longer governed by the use of emergency powers.
As reported in Newsday cited above, the Attorney General had reminded the House that at the time the State of Emergency was declared there was intelligence that: “a plot was in advanced stages of development from within Trinidad and Tobago’s correctional facilities aimed at attacking and targeting citizens involved in the political and justice system and state buildings across the country.”
A significant success was claimed by the Attorney General in that “the initial crisis was successfully and efficiently dealt with”.
(via AZP News.)
As mentioned last week, the Attorney General has placed emphasis on criminal networks within the prison and he has done so in a consistent manner. There is no reason to dispute the existence of this danger.
There have been intermittent reports of the rumblings caused by the transfer of prisoners and it is not difficult to accept therefore that there may be need for “the dismantling operations” referenced in the House on 31 October.
I expressed the view that it was specious for the People’s National Movement (PNM), now in Opposition, to vote against the 31 October resolution. I did so because their rationale, when in Government, for the declaration of a State of Emergency of 30 December 2024—subsequently extended for three months—was due to the extensive scale of violence likely to be perpetrated by criminal gangs.
Photo: PNM.
Moreover, there are events in other narco-infiltrated states that demonstrate the power of leaderships within the prison system. For example, I invite readers to search continuing prison related events in Ecuador which occurred following the start of special operations against organized crime, called Metastasis, in December 2023.
On 13 January 2024, The New York Times reported on the level of impunity under which gangs were operating, even from behind bars and that a plan to transfer prisoners had provoked intense anger.
The report quoted named sources describing how the Metastasis operations “disrupted the equilibrium that allows them to do business as usual”. (See also Americas Quarterly, 23 March 2024.)
via iStockphoto.)
There has been a 45 per cent reduction of murders in 2025 over 2024 as of October this year, which Attorney General Jeremie SC attributed to the State of Emergency. The CoP has harped on this statistic, but it must be examined without blinkers.
Is it a transient reduction, a mere press of pause buttons? Will gang-related killings resume if emergency powers of detention without prosecution and conviction are no longer available?
In any event, citizens all over the country are not any safer. This is graphically illustrated by reported events of the last week or so: Member of Parliament mourns murdered uncle; kidnapped farmer killed despite payment of ransom; street corner execution; man fatally shot during altercation; man shot dead sitting in a vehicle; yet another home invasion horror; separate bandit attacks on a guest house and meat and poultry shop.
(via iStockphoto.)
The current murder statistic and other touted statistics do not answer these questions: Why do families have to endure this kind of pain and rarely receive justice?
Why are communities shaken and hearts heavy?
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Martin G Daly SC is a prominent attorney-at-law. He is a former Independent Senator and past president of the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago.
He is chairman of the Pat Bishop Foundation and a steelpan music enthusiast.
