2008 Press Releases

March 5, 2008

Trinidad and Tobago’s Criminal Deportees:  The Continuing Saga

Dr. Roy L. Austin, U.S. Ambassador

In recent weeks, the print media have published several articles about criminal deportees.  Unlike many earlier discussions of this subject, most today are primarily cordial in tone and show admirable curiosity rather than unquestioning acceptance.  I am particularly impressed by the Guardian editorial of February 25^th which commented on the likelihood that the “grandfathers and retirees” who peopled the Vision on Mission deportee help-center would remain involved in serious criminality.  This editorial also mentioned the need for professionals to guide rehabilitation programs; and the attendant high financial cost.

Furthermore, the Guardian editorial correctly applauded the effort of Wayne Chance’s Vision on Mission, but recognized that optimum success requires greater exertion, and scrupulous disbursement of more public funds to proven organizations.

We do also learn more from some of the information published than is obvious.  Therefore, my main contribution will be to dig below the surface of the quantitative data provided in the Guardian, March 1.  These data, for instance, show that of  2,000 deportees arriving in Trinidad and Tobago between 2002 and 2007, 156 have been charged with criminal offenses.  Therefore, these deportees show a recidivism rate of 7.8%, although no fewer than 1,290 were deported at least two years earlier.  This is a rather paltry recidivism rate compared with the 59% re-arrest rate for U.S. inmates within two years of release in 1994. 

Part of the reason for the great difference between recidivism rates may be the relatively old age of the deportees that is noted in the Guardian editorial.  Unfortunately, I am not aware that any strictly comparable recidivism rate has been calculated for Trinidad and Tobago; but the University of the West Indies Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice has reported that between January and May 2002 56% of inmates were recidivists.

The insubstantial contribution of deportees to the Trinidad and Tobago crime rate is better understood by examining prosecutions instituted in Trinidad and Tobago.  For the period 2002 through 2004, there were 13,296 prosecutions instituted for serious crimes (Annual Statistical Digest 2007).  According to Daily Express figures (January 30, 2008), only 36 deportees were charged during these years.  That is, deportees were responsible for a measly 0.2% of the prosecutions for serious offenses in Trinidad and Tobago.

The Daily Express (January 30, 2008) shows that the average number of deportees charged per year from 2005 through 2007 is 40 compared with 12 in the previous three years.  Therefore, I recalculated the contribution of deportees to the number of prosecutions assuming 4,432 prosecutions per year, the annual average from 2002 through 2004.  Still, the deportee contribution was a measly 0.9%.

However, a skeptic may argue that the major concern over deportee criminality is that “Law enforcement officers have stated that deportees are responsible for most of the serious crimes and are involved in kidnapping, murders and gang-related and drug-related matters” (Daily Express [January 30, 2008] ).  In order to concretize this claim, the Express names “two of the major gang heads in the country.”

The strategy of using a few atypical cases as if they are the norm is a common but misleading practice.  The two “major gang heads” are atypical of deportees.  Furthermore, there is enough reliable evidence about one of the examples to encourage doubt about the claim that “because of their exposure to foreign crime, these criminal deportees often assume leadership position [sic] in local gangs” (Daily Express [January 30, 2008]).  Reliable information alleges that this person went to the U.S. in his mid-twenties following the issuing in Trinidad and Tobago of arrest warrants against him for attempted murder, armed robbery, and wounding.  Certainly, this deportee had committed criminal acts that could accord him high status, including leadership, in a criminal gang prior to entry into the United States. As importantly, he did not learn his criminality in the U.S. as is so often claimed.

There are other published statements on the complex deportee issue that are without empirical support.  One such is the statement attributed to Mr. Chance of Vision of Mission that the United States sends deportees back to their country “in jail clothes and slippers.”  Another statement attributed to him is that “many of them come with no clothes or shoes….”  I do not believe that this latter statement is meant to be taken literally.  Nevertheless, it is important to correct the distorted picture painted by both statements.

According to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Detention and Removal Operations (DRO), if deportees do not have (or bring) their own clothing, the DRO center that processes them will supply standard-issue blue jeans, shirt, and blue slip-on canvas tennis shoes.

Deportees also have access to telephones in detention centers and can buy phone cards to call friends and family.  They further have access to free legal counsel and to consular services from their home country, and to a hearing before an immigration judge.  In the out-processing area (the final stop before deportation), those being deported have access to phones so they can notify someone of their scheduled arrival at a home country airport.  In addition, host governments are informed of the impending deportation.

Mr. Chance is further reported as saying that the treatment he described is the reason some deportees continue their life of crime upon return to Trinidad and Tobago.  However, nothing in the article suggests to a reader that this opinion is other than purely speculative.  In so far as the deportation resulted from criminality in the U.S. (some persons are deported for illegal entry), might the deportee not be simply continuing his/her criminal ways?  After all, once a person develops a criminal tendency, the opportunity to engage in crime with impunity is probably the major variable determining further involvement in crime.  Age is another determinant.

The U.S., of course, understands the concern of nations to reintegrate those returning to their society.  Following the June 2007 U.S.-CARICOM Summit, the United States allocated US $2.8 million for a pilot Caribbean deportee reintegration program, our implementing partner being the International Organization for Migration (IOM).  IOM will develop assistance programs for deportees, including housing referrals, job training and placement, counseling, and micro-finance assistance.  This is a pilot program that will focus on only a few countries, not including Trinidad and Tobago; but it is hoped that the best-practices discerned will prove useful to all Caribbean nations.

Finally, in considering deportees, we should not set aside the issue of individual responsibility.  People who are deported from the United States are sent back to their home country for a reason.  Many of them claim that their infractions in the U.S. were minor; but our data for all countries show that over two-thirds of criminal aliens deported had committed violent, narcotic, theft or sexual crimes. Just as Trinidad and Tobago is within its sovereign rights to deport aliens who are in this country illegally or who have broken laws (and it does so), the U.S. has this right (and duty to its citizens) as well.