As Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) Commissioner Allister Guevarro approaches his one-year anniversary in the top law enforcement role next month, Homeland Security Minister Roger Alexander is opening the door for public and peer input on his tenure — declining to share his own personal rating ahead of the broader feedback period.
Alexander made the announcement during the TTPS’s 103rd annual Sports and Family Day, held Tuesday at St James Barracks, where reporters pressed him for his assessment of Guevarro’s leadership and what areas may need improvement. Guevarro and several senior TTPS deputies, including Junior Benjamin and Suzette Martin, were in attendance during the media interaction.
When asked to weigh in on Guevarro’s leadership of the national police force, Alexander pushed back on framing policing performance as a one-person responsibility. “It’s a team effort and not an individual effort. For the team effort, I have total confidence in the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service, from where I came from,” he told reporters.
The conversation also turned to longstanding public demands for mandatory body-worn cameras for frontline patrol officers, a policy widely cited as a tool to boost transparency and police accountability. While Alexander confirmed the government and TTPS do not oppose the adoption of body cameras, he said outfitting officers with life-saving protective gear is the immediate priority, given the rising danger facing law enforcement in the country.
“At this time, I have decided to protect law enforcement first by giving them the requisite protection gear so they can better protect you as citizens and this nation as a whole,” he explained. Pointing to the increasingly heavy firepower used by criminal actors, including 7.62mm and 5.56mm ammunition, Alexander questioned whether the public should prioritize recording equipment over officer safety: “What do you want? Do you want a man to be confident enough to take on these persons or do you want him to tape it with all the requisite equipment?”
After reporters reiterated the role of body cameras in ensuring transparency and accountability, Alexander shifted the conversation to what he called the deeper root causes of violent crime in the country: systemic failures in family and community upbringing. He argued that public discourse too often focuses exclusively on police performance, while ignoring the role of family members who harbor violent criminals and fail to intervene in harmful behavior early on.
“Why this conversation is not with the parenting aspect of this?” he asked. “Greater attention must be paid to family structures, community influence and early intervention in schools. We often question police officers, but less focus is placed on parents and grandparents, and on the fathers and them who are shooting persons, killing young children and then going to sleep and hugging up their children.”
Alexander added that even during the event, there are families across the country turning a blind eye to the criminal activity of their relatives: “Right now, while we’re speaking here, there’s someone — a grandmother, a mother, somebody — looking out the window to see when the police is coming because their criminal son is lying on the bed. He’s sleeping because he was out all night.”
To address these root causes, the minister confirmed the government is rolling out a new, multi-stakeholder psychosocial intervention initiative focused on crime prevention, a strategy the administration says is unprecedented in Trinidad and Tobago. A dedicated intervention team will work directly in schools and local communities to address harmful patterns early, partnering with criminologists, psychologists, parent-teacher associations, and faith leaders to implement preventive measures.
“At this time, the police have a psychosocial intervention team that we are putting together to enter the schools, to enter the community… Things that were never done before, because we understand prevention is the first stage,” Alexander said. “We have a wide range of professionals and community leaders coming on board because they understand prevention is better than cure.”