Senator: Government must not retreat on responsibility to fight crime

Independent Senator Dr Marlene Attzs. - File photo

INDEPENDENT Senator Dr Marlene Attzs has warned government not to retreat on its responsibility to fight crime by shifting that responsibility on to ordinary citizens through the passage of stand-your-ground legislation.

She issued this warning during her contribution to debate on the Home Invasion (Self-Defence and Defence of Property) Bill, 2025 on December 2. Debate on the bill continues in the Senate on December 5.

Referring to an earlier contribution by temporary government senator Dr Kirk Meighoo about the UNC promising to reduce crime by 50 per cent over the next five years the UNC delivering on its campaign promises since winning the April 28 general election, Attzs declared, "The government cannot retreat from the battle it was elected to fight (crime). The people of this country voted for the government to fight this battle on their behalf."

She reminded senators that public safety is not optional but a public good which must be delivered by the state and no one else.

"This bill does more than shift the burden of safety on to private individuals. it could also, perhaps inadvertently be interpreted that this bill signals a quiet retreat by the state from perhaps its most fundamental duty."

Attzs said the bill is "essentially saying to citizens..we are constrained...realise that this is more of a mammoth task than we determined...and we want to give you the opportunity to defend yourself...because we cannot guarantee your public safety."

She told senators the public wants crime to be brought under control and to feel safe. But Attzs said no citizen wants to be handed a licence to kill.

Attzs recalled government senators describing the bill as empowering citizens to protect themselves against criminals.

"This is not empowerment. It is the privatisation of violence and the outsourcing of the state's most sacred duty to thousands of frightened, untrained, unsupported individuals."

She said the bill "replaces organised state managed public security as a public good with adhoc household by household defence."

Attzs added, "It transforms safety from a guaranteed public right to a private gamble."

She was concerned the government is presenting stand-your-ground legislation in the absence of any coherent national strategy to deal with crime.

Attzs said it is public knowledge that the criminal justice system and other institutions responsible for dealing with crime are all on some kind of life support at this time. She questioned whether the introduction of stand-your-ground legislation as conceived by the government will strengthen any of these critical institutions to assure the population that something is being done to curb crime.

"The bill emerges in a troubling policy vacuum."

Attzs empathised with Government Senator Brian Baig about the trauma he and his family experienced as a result of a home invasion. But she cautioned that fear and/or fear-based narratives should not form the basis of law making.

Attzs also warned the bill could inadvertently privatise violence, if it becomes law.

"When violence is privatised it is not privatised evenly. Those who have the resources will fortify themselves and those who don't have the resources will be left more vulnerable, more exposed and more at risk of fatal misunderstanding.

Attzs said the Parliament's National Security Joint Select Committee (JSC) has already established in one of its previous reports that this disproportionality exists in TT.

She added the international research on stand-your-ground laws shows they increase rather than reduce crime and "disproportionally harm marginalised communities."

While supporting some elements of the bill, Attzs said stand-your-ground legislation by itself may only offer the "illusion of safety" instead of the real thing."