 Hello and welcome to special discussion with Prime Minister the Honourable Alan Chastney as we look back at the achievements and challenges of 2019. This is the final part in a three-hour discussion with the Prime Minister looking at various key areas as stated in his 2019-2020 budget presentation. And so we are now down to the areas of citizen safety and later on we'll be discussing what's happening with infrastructure. But for citizen safety, for St. Lucian's, many considered it to be a very dismal year, dark and gloomy looking at the rise in violent crime and homicide. I think we may have ended the year at number 51 for 2019. Very very troubling and you've indicated several times that for you it is a very warring situation. So as you look at what your strategy has been over the last year and looking forward, do you believe that all was done to create that sort of buffer between the perpetrators of crime and the low-abiding citizens of St. Lucian? So this unfortunately is a recurring theme in that I have to make reference to what we inherited. So we inherited a situation in which radar system was not working, forensic lab was shut, there was no DPP. In fact, the office itself had been depleted significantly. Courthouses were shut, no ammunition, policemen's morale was very very very low, lots of problems. So again to say I'm going to push a button overnight and all of a sudden things are going to get resolved, wasn't, wasn't going to happen. So when I first came in and I got my first briefing, I was just, I mean speechless and I immediately moved security up very high. It was a high on the priority list but I said we're crisis point at this at this point and one of the critical things was we, a thousand case backlog in criminal cases. Let's put that in perspective. That would take two judges almost three years and cost about 13 and a half million dollars to just deal with that backlog and every year we're adding more onto it because of the backlog. So it takes almost somewhere between four and six years for a case to be able to be heard. Now are you really going to have an effective justice system and a criminal security system if in fact a person is arrested, is either put on remand and waits in jail for that period of time or is let out on bail until their case is being heard. So the cry that crime doesn't pay was changed to crime does pay and so there was no fear of being caught. Forensic lab in terms of getting the evidence wasn't there, right? Courthouses so when you did in fact want to get your case heard that courthouses were inadequate, we're constantly having to be closed because of problems, massive, massive problems. So we've systematically looked to rebuild the police system from everywhere so we've gotten now three or four of the marine boats working, the radar system is working, the forensic lab is back up in operation and I'm very excited fingerprinting and DNA testing are now fingerprinting is already operational by later this year the DNA testing will be a huge where DPP's office has been replenished and is functioning. We're now working on the communication system so for instance policemen didn't have any ways of communicating with other than using their own cell phones. We now have a proper VHF system that's in place that people can walk around with walkie-talkies, there's access in your vehicles, training for policemen, adding new policemen so we've added 40 new recruits into the police and we have now 42 policemen in the city that are helping the city police, added new vehicles, new motorbikes. So there's a lot of work that's taking place. What I've said is one thing I know in life is that wherever there's effort eventually there's going to be results. And speaking about all that work so we now want to share with our viewers how all of that was able to unfold over the last year and so we go to our special production there looking back at some of the events in citizen safety for 2019. High on the agenda for government in 2019 was citizen safety with a focus on tackling the root causes of issues in that area. To ensure more boats on the ground especially in identified crime hotspot areas, 80 new police officers were sworn into the Royal St. Lucia Police Force with an additional 42 to the city police unit. In addition to ensuring a larger police presence, government also addressed the issue of failing equipment and transportation hindrances with the purchase of new vehicles, motorbikes and communication equipment. Operation of Coast Guard vessels and radar equipment were restored after an extended period of in operation. Those interventions now ensure quicker response times and better communication between officers and units. Recognizing that accidents and crimes can happen without witnesses, government undertook the task of installing 180 CCTV cameras with over 525 to be installed at a cost of $5.8 million. To date crimes have been solved and vehicular accident disputes resolved using this technology. After two years of the forensic lab being closed, government undertook much needed refurbishment of the building at a cost of $700,000. The lab is now reopened and functional with 13 staff members and the latest industry standard equipment necessary for solving crimes using DNA and other technology. The lab has given us solutions to at least two cases. One at Marysale will be elderly lady and one from Gefort, a young lady called Sabi. So we have the forensic on that and it was found out that those individuals were the ones who committed the crime. And this is the way we have to go. Forensic evidence is going to be the way forward. We can't rely on eyewitnesses or persons to come forward because as a small society we don't have the capacity for witness protection. We have just a small window of opportunity there. So we have to rely on the forensic. Intent on clearing out the backlog of cases and ensuring swift adjusts, the government has fortified the office of the DPP by providing much needed resources. Additionally, the number of magistrates and judges have been increased to ensure criminal and civil matters are brought to a close as quickly as possible. Community after school programs continued throughout 2019 in communities such as Marsha, Auger, Bellevue, Moshi, Barbano, Jackmel, Souffre and Forchaux to name a few. This program keeps young persons meaningfully engaged in sports, music, dance and art. The program also entails mandatory life and social skills training, all helping to serve as a deterrent to the streets. Students are also served with meals during that time provided by the government. The community after school program helps those young persons with self-development as well as building meaningful relationships and camaraderie. Programs such as this aim to tackle crime at the root. So as we saw there, we looked at in the video, we saw that the courts, we're opening up the Naira Court, we spoke about the CCTV, which is massive investment for the government. And most importantly, we saw the recruits which we spoke about. So beefing up the police and wanting as well for more boots on the ground. For the government, as you begin to examine how it is that you could really tackle and because your aim is for 45% reduction of serious crimes by the end of 2022. And so some people looking back at 2019 would believe that we're just not on targets. I think, you know, we're disappointed in the numbers, but the fact is the effort is there. And we're starting to see people starting to believe in the system. So policemen had been given promises of new vehicles forever. Policemen had been given promises that we'd be fixing up their premises forever. Policemen were still suffering from the impacts situation and the lack of proper training and the equipment to be able to do their job. So I think that everybody is starting to get the message that my government is committed and that when we make a promise to them that we're going to deliver on that promise. We now meet on a weekly basis. We've been doing that for almost over a year. Every single Monday before cabinet, the Minister of Security, the Attorney General, the delivery unit, and senior members of the police force, we meet and we go through the numbers. So we're measuring 10 different serious levels of crime, robbery, burglaries, car theft, homicides, a bunch of them that we look at and we're measuring them on a week by week basis trends as well as on a per annual basis and then compare to where we want the numbers to be able to get to. So people now are getting accustomed that they have to answer to these ideas. But as much as I'm putting those systems in, there are some other projects that we're working on, we're equally as important. Cause of the crime in the first place. So one, if you look at the number of homicides that happened late in the year, the vast majority of them were what? Brothers fighting with brothers, cousins fighting with cousins, friends fighting with each other, stabbing each other, shooting each other simply because they couldn't control their tempers. Big problem. Police can't stop that. That's us as a society and people recognizing that things are building up and trying to separate people because once somebody's life is lost, they're lost, they can't bring them back. And so this is a societal problem that we have to be able to resolve. So then the thinking, how we think about crime, when we look at personal responsibility, where does each individual fit into the bigger picture of fighting crime, you're saying that we need to have a sort of shift in the mindset of how the nation views all of those factors? That's on homicide. So we see, if you take gang of violence as well as and combine it now with personal conflict, that makes up the vast majority of the homicides we've had. The bigger one I'm concerned about really is robberies, burglaries, and car thefts. And I think that what happens, it affects a lot of people and it chains their mindset in terms of what the overall safety and the capacity of the police to actually carry out a proper investigation. So look, I'm not telling any tales behind school. I think that most of us who've been in that, I have been robbed in the past. Policemen came in. I have a question how I see they're collecting the forensics, the fingerprinting and the DNA samples and how they inform me in terms of what they're doing. It's not really left me with a warm, fuzzy feeling that these crimes are going to be resolved. So by improving the forensic lab, now creating our own crime unit, a dedicated crime unit that are actually the ones collecting this evidence. And the building of a database because to be fair, if there isn't anything to match it up against, then we're really in the losing battle. Correct. And unfortunately I'm the one who was involved in that discussion. I remember when we opened the forensic lab the first time and I said, you don't have any information in it. Why don't we use the fingerprints from the ID cards? Now solutions have to think about that and have a real discussion about that. I for one would like my fingerprint to be in it because if there's a crime I want to know that I'm not the one who committed the crime. And if in fact it helps resolve crime and keeps me safer, that's a positive thing. But we have to weigh that up based everybody's civil rights. And those that's the discussion that will take place. But I genuinely believe that we should be able to have access to the fingerprinting off ID cards. We're not doing it right now, but that's a discussion that needs to be able to take this here 100% correct. I think getting the DNA lab here. So for instance, a lot of people who are having sex with younger girls, we're now going to be able to provide the evidence as to whether they're doing that or not. We've spoken to the policeman at traffic. I think that solutions, when they start seeing that we're dealing with some of the smaller crimes on a more consistent basis, it builds confidence and starts changing people's overall attitude. Speeding, cars that aren't really suitable to be on the road. All these are very, very important things in terms of maintaining. Loitering, illegal activities which we just let go. So who's making the decision? Somebody's acting as the judge every time to determine, well, this person can get away with it and this other person cannot. We have to be consistent in terms of how we're going to be enforcing. So there's a general attitudinal change that needs to take place. And I think that we're starting to get the buy-in now of the police force to be able to do that. I mean, I'm committed to this police force. I absolutely feel for them in terms of what they've had to do. And I was just saying in a meeting today, you go to a police station, the tiles are missing, the drain is clogged, there's no hot water, the toilet seat is missing, there's not proper towels, the washer and dryer are not working, the mattress hasn't been replaced in a long time, the kitchen is a mess, the furniture is falling apart and they've not walked off the job. I would rather talk about the good things that these guys have done than everybody wants to focus on all the negative things. And so my government has said, let me help. And that's where I'm really proud of the work that my wife is doing in terms of reinforcing in the policeman's mind that we want to celebrate them. And that's why every year at the police ball, we celebrate people who have retired and recognize the policemen, police officers that are achieving great things. And to say to them, we do care, we do recognize what you're doing to be able to get the insurance. And we're looking at duty-free vehicles for policemen because if a policeman is going to be on duty, should he really have to be traveling in uniform on a public bus? But again, these are things that have been outstanding for the longest amount of time and we're now getting through all of them. So building the morale of the police force would result in better protection of the nation? It's one of the things. And that's what I'm saying to you. There's not one thing by itself. It's a multitude of programs and efforts that are being made in initiatives in order to strengthen our police force. Border control. The computer terminals that you see in immigration, there's nothing in them. Nothing in them. No, for years. The company that provided the software went bankrupt. Never been replaced. You know, a simple thing that when I went into the immigration office of the airport and it was just piles of immigration cards and you could smell the ink and they had rats and it was horrible. Even as prime minister, it took me six months to eventually get that to be moved. There's just a malaise, generally speaking, and people are just become so despondent because the systems weren't working and it was everywhere. Victoria Hospital, police stations, in your schools, on the roads, government buildings. So this attitudinal change that needed to take place and that's why I'm saying this Christmas was the first time I've seen in a long time people's confidence and hope was being restored. And you could see people going out with smiles on their face. I went to Asus Square. I went around the island. I went into the shops and saw how packed it was and you can see that vibrancy that was starting to come back. And I think... Because you believe that they felt safe. Not just they felt safe. People were just feeling better about the direction this country was going in and you can see that they're becoming more comfortable with that. And as more and more of the programs that we've been outlining that we're outlining today are starting to manifest themselves, that will continue in my mind to contribute confidence. It's the same thing with the police. Some of them are going to run out of excuses. You have the communication systems. We have the ability to collect the intelligence. We knew who they were, okay? We're getting advanced notice. So in fact, if you're not doing your job, then there must be a different reason. And so holding them accountable would be far easier. That's what I'm hearing you're saying. One of the other pillars or what you call them, 12 game changers within the citizen safety when your budget address, you spoke very passionately about the rehabilitation and so that we can cut back on repeat offenders and so forth. How far a scope of a program you're expecting this to be? Is something confined solely to the bodily correction of a facility or you expect it to be something broader across the spectrum for low enforcement? So we're examining a multitude of different options. So first of all, increasing the number of social workers. We have 12. We've added another three. Want to get to 30, yeah? And also to give them the resources so that again, potential, I don't want to call them criminals, okay? But potential, yes, at risk individuals that we can address it early enough that they don't choose that path. First time youth offenders, even if it's a criminal case, why don't we use technology? They get convicted, they get an ankle bracelet. Instead of me putting them in border lay, which I call LinkedIn, meaning that they're developing now a new Rolodex of contacts, they're getting a free education in crime and they get a stigma associated to them and that it makes it very difficult for them to choose any other career other than crime that they're now reporting to a counselor, not even a parole officer, a counselor, who's now working with them to be able to get a proper job and they can start now going down a different road. The public is safe because they have this thing. A young person now is not condemned to a life of crime and they're given a new opportunity. And if they're in fact successful, what they get now is they come off of the ankle bracelet and they now have to just report like on a parole basis. Do we even know how much it costs to maintain a prisoner, a border lay? So actually not having a border lay or a minimize border lay means with the same amount of money we might be able to implement a system like that. So creating kind of a halfway system where they're still having to give up some of their rights because they have an ankle bracelet on them. But at the same time, they're being reintegrated and given a second chance in our society. And again, this is why I say as a small island, what may apply as a good program in bigger countries doesn't necessarily work here. So if I was in America and I got caught in Miami, I can go to Orlando, I can go to Jacksonville, I can go to Georgia, I can go to across the country, I can go to Chicago. Yes, I have a record, but people don't know me. Where are you going to go in San Lucia? Right? So we have to have a more compassionate country and address what the root cause of these problems are in the first place. You're never going to be able to eliminate it entirely. But malicious crimes and people who are deliberately threatening people's lives, stealing people's assets, we must do everything we can to rehabilitate. If we cannot, then that's where the traditional system will come in. But these are the kinds of discussions that we're having in terms of looking at a medium term and a long term solution to the problems we have. You know, it's funny because I once had a conversation with a correct police officer and he asked me a question and said that in all of the years that we've had police in St Lucia, boots on the ground and all of those things, policemen come and go generation after generation in the hot spots. We consider to be the crime hot spots. What has changed? And I had to pause and really think and he said, everything remains the same. It's just that you have a revolving door of police officers policing these hot spots and the social economic and the people, but the socioeconomic status remains. And so I had to really give that some thought as you spoke about changing a mindset and the environment that came to mind that in those areas, that's the constant, the socioeconomic status of these hot spot areas. The after school program, that's another thing that the government is passionate about being able again to create that intervention to engage young people. Are we broadening the scope again of this program? We are. It started off basically and it really is at the school, at the schools itself, at the school facilities and I mean, we learned our very, you know, should have probably been more obvious. We had to include food and so providing a meal for the kids went a very long way in encouraging participation in the program. But this club system that we're proposing and building the facilities to be able to do that. So if you have a club and the club can have drama, it can have sports in it. You have primary level and secondary level and you have what we call senior leagues. So a club can have a multitude of different programs and it's in your community. And it's by providing resources. So what we're saying is the money that currently goes into the lottery. So basically what we're doing is taking and dividing the lottery. Taking the regulatory part of what the lottery does, which is to provide the oversight of gaming and putting that into the gaming authority and now creating a new youth and sports authority. And so that entity now will be putting together the programs. So you can have different drama programs, different film programs. You can have dance programs all throughout the country after school. So I can come home after school into my community. I can go to dance class. I can then go to football class. Yeah, all in my same community. We know that when people participate in these kinds of activities, it helps them. So it teaches interaction. It teaches competition. To become successful, you must become disciplined. To create that desire to become successful is competition. So the more competition there is and the higher the level of competition, the more discipline and the more work you have to be able to do. And you build self-esteem there. And you build self-esteem. Some will be concerned about the unattached youth. So not at school, out of school, in the community. Does that also encapsulate these individuals? We have a special program for that. So what happens is that we've talked about creating a social net is how we describe it. So currently in the system, people for the most part, governments for the most part have believed that you can help vulnerable people through taxation. I'm not going to put that on baby food or some of these products. As if somehow you're going to help a poor person. Or we're subsidizing the cost of rice, flour, and sugar. We're not only subsidizing it for the vulnerable person, but we're subsidizing it for everybody else. When we reduce the VAT, we're reducing it for everybody. So we're saying, we don't think that that's the best way. So we're saying, let us use technology where everybody's going to become registered. They're going to have their insurance card. They're going to have their proper ID card. We're now going to keep track of who's working, who's not working, and what their status is by decentralizing government into the local government between elderly health care, mental wellness, and also sports, as well as our social programs to maintain who these people are. So your poverty list right now is not really a poverty list. Not everybody who deserves and deserves to be on the poverty list is. A poverty list is driven by what? How much money has been put into the budget? And so therefore the people who are on are happy. People who are not on, they tell you, why is my government not in government and this and that? And then the minister is getting involved because they're clearly being getting pressured by their constituents. We said we have to create a system in which once you are deserving of it, then you get it. So some of these single mothers who don't have jobs, don't have the capacity to get jobs with multiple kids, right? We need to be able to provide free education, free bus transportation, free food, make sure the kids have more than one pair of shoes and also have their uniforms and have their schoolbooks or their ebook, make sure they're getting inoculated. All these things, the state must become the father. But the equally there are single fathers with multiple children, right? Correct, but and once they are deserving, right, and that they don't have the capacity to do it for themselves, we have to be able to support that. Part of that is also providing them with the clothing and the ability to go to these sports programs. So this is why we're saying a minimum standard for everybody else. It is when kids are discriminated against. When all of a sudden there are kids who have and they have kids who have not, that these kids have to psychologically grow up, not feeling the same. I spoke to some of the social workers. Some of these boys, nobody's ever hugged them. Nobody said, I love you. Who's going to their games with them? We need that. I can't imagine a day going by without me telling my son I love him. Can't imagine not hugging them, yeah? And sometimes I see my son, oh, like he pretends like he doesn't want it. You know darn well that he does. And this is why I say that to all of us as solutions, we see the problem every day in our neighborhoods. Let's go back to the days when we used to help each other out. Because you ignore that problem, that problem is going to come back and at some point it may confront you, right? We must have this love and this compassion for each other. We must learn to give and there are some solutions who I just admire because they give above and beyond what they're supposed to. But not all of us do. And we almost find a way to do that. So the security problem is intertwined with a whole bunch of things. It's not going to get resolved over no one thing, but I want to make it very clear that we have not picked any one thing to solve the problem. Every aspect of it. We're injecting money, injecting resources, and continuing to monitor it. And that's why I say to you, I am confident, right? I can't tell you when, but I am confident that those efforts will pay off. People will see it and the combination of everything that we're going to do is going to resolve this problem.