Editorial | T&T’s dangerous idea

Trinidad and Tobago’s new government should be extremely cautious in proceeding with its plan for a stand-your-ground self-defence law, lest it unleashes grave and unintended consequences.

Indeed, this newspaper suggests to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar that she drop the idea – which, when first broached, we assumed to be mere windy, campaign febrility – and get on with the tough and complex grind of finding solutions to her country’s serious problem of crime, especially homicides.

People in Jamaica, where there are more than 1,000 murders annually and a homicide rate that generally hovers around 50 per 100,000, understand the anxieties caused by crime and the temptation to grasp for seemingly easy, and populist, solutions. These may offer short-term palliatives but are rarely sustainable solutions.

Moreover, the risk of a rise in vigilantism inherent in the stand-your-ground proposal could stress Trinidad and Tobago’s social fabric and threaten the country’s cherished democracy.

Like other common-law jurisdictions in the English-speaking Caribbean, Trinidad and Tobago’s Offences Against the Person Act, at Section seven, contains a provision that effectively protects people who kill in self-defence and, by extension, during the protection of properties.

It says: “ No punishment shall be incurred by any person who kills another person by misfortune or in his own defence, or in any other manner without criminality.”

It is the exact language as Section 10 of Jamaica’s Offence Against the Person Act of 1864.

INCREASINGLY EXTREME SOLUTIONS

But, implicit in these provisions, and in keeping with the standards that have been historically applied by the courts, is the danger faced by the perpetrator, and the proportionality of her action informs her plea of self-defence. A person is entitled to use reasonable force, including death, if she faces imminent danger. And all bets are off if that danger is from an intruder inside her home.

In recent years, apparently, Trinidad and Tobago has faced a significant, and rising, number of murders relating to home invasion, although it is not clear how many they attributed to the 625 homicides the country recorded in 2024 – an eight per cent hike on the previous year.

Indeed, while there have been a few years when the number of homicides declined, the long-term trend line in the southern Caribbean state has been upward. It had 55 per cent more murders last year than a decade earlier. Trinidad and Tobago’s homicide rate of 45/100,000 is comparable to Jamaica’s.

It is understandable, in the circumstances, that many Trinidadians, as has been the case in Jamaica, are in favour of increasingly extreme solutions, aimed at making criminals ‘pay’ quickly, or placing citizens, they feel, on ‘equal footing’ with those who commit murders and other crimes. Easier access to licensed firearms for “law-abiding” citizens has long been among the ‘solutions’ proposed in Jamaica to combat crime.

We would not be surprised, therefore, if Ms Persad-Bissessar’s extremist exhortation a year and a half ago for Trinidadians to “light up” people who invade people’s homes to commit crimes was, and remains, popular.

She said: “When the criminals invade your homes, you can draw your licensed firearm and light them up! Empty the whole clip! Empty it! Light them up! We have to fight fire with fire!”

The United National Congress (UNC) leader pledged that, if her party won the next election – which it did last month – she would introduce stand-your-ground laws to shield women like a mother who confronted “these criminals coming into her home ... to rob and rape her and her children”.

DELIVER PERVERSE RESULTS

Ms Persad-Bissessar’s attorney general, John Jeremie, reported this week that such a bill is being fast-tracked, to be laid in the country’s parliament before the end of the year.

Enacted in 27 of America’s 50 states, stand-your-ground laws are most common in the United States. Controversially so.

They afford citizens a greater right/freedom to employ force, even if deadly, in instances of presumed threats, without the need to retreat to avoid confrontation.

The weight of the evidence suggests, though, that people in these situations, especially when armed with guns, tend to escalate, rather than seek to defuse, conflicts. This is especially so in the United States where race and class often shape attitudes and outcomes in emotionally charged situations.

A white person asserting that she acted out of fear and in self-defence (with) a stand-your-ground plea involving a black victim is far more likely to prevail than if the circumstance were reversed.

The Trayvon Martin (victim) and George Zimmerman episode in Florida 13 years ago when Mr Zimmerman shot and killed an unarmed, 17-year-old Martin in a gated community where the young man was staying, still reverberates today, despite a jury’s not-guilty verdict in favour of Mr Zimmerman.

Legal scholars question whether Mr Zimmerman, who pursued Martin, was in any danger when he triggered the confrontation, and if his use of force was justifiable. Many critics see in Mr Zimmerman’s behaviour, and several other cases since then, racial profiling.

These issues may not arise in Trinidad and Tobago, but other power dynamics may well come into play to deliver perverse results.

Put another way, Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar and AG Jeremie should be wary of their proposed solutions encouraging violent confrontations rather than delivering public safety.

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