Cabinet must confront a hard truth: the single greatest feeder of crime in Trinidad and Tobago is the growing pool of idle, unsupervised young men under 19 who are out of school, unskilled, and already gravitating toward gangs, this is not a policing problem, it is a national failure of structure and opportunity.
We can no longer afford soft, fragmented programmes that touch the surface while communities deteriorate; what is required now is a decisive, court backed National Service Programme that compels disengaged youth into a disciplined, residential system for an initial six months of intensive training followed by up to three years of structured development, combining literacy, behavioural reform, and certified trade skills aligned to real labour demand, with clear pathways into employment, entrepreneurship, or voluntary enlistment in the Trinidad and Tobago Regiment and Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard.
This is not about punishment, it is about breaking the direct pipeline from idleness to crime by replacing it with income, discipline, and purpose; every young man we fail to capture in this net today becomes a far greater cost to the State tomorrow in policing, prisons, and lost productivity, and unless Cabinet acts with urgency and political will, we will continue to fund the consequences of crime instead of fixing its cause.
Gordon Laughlin,
Westmoorings
