AMID the bustle of Carnival, it may have escaped the attention of some that law enforcement authorities scored a victory.
Anthony Smith, the first person in this country to be convicted of human trafficking, was recaptured by police. He had been placed on bail on the condition that he wear an ankle bracelet pending his trial, at which he faced several charges including the trafficking of a minor for sexual exploitation.
The trial happened last September, but he jumped ship, resulting in conviction in absentia. After five months, and much embarrassment for the Ministry of National Security, Mr Smith was finally caught in Kelly Village, Caroni, on Sunday.
“Those who celebrated his escape in order to brand the State as ineffectual, I would like to hear their comments this morning because I knew it was only a matter of time,” said Fitzgerald Hinds this week.
If Mr Hinds knew, the public certainly had reason to doubt.
Too many questions remain surrounding Mr Smith’s case. How did he escape? Was he able to tamper with his device? If so, how was this possible? Are the devices procured by the State defective? Or was Mr Smith so ingenious as to discover a flaw no one else in the world has?
Separately, was the police response adequate? How much time elapsed between the Electronic Monitoring Unit of the ministry raising the alarm and officers turning up on Mr Smith’s doorstep? Putting aside the fact that this case involves the use of advanced technology, what accounts for the five months in which Mr Smith remained at large while not wearing a bracelet?
If the public is tempted to see all of this as a comedy of errors, that is because it has been decades now we have been trying to get electronic monitoring on a solid footing. Citizens are completely aware of the possibility that, through his recapture, the State has simply solved a problem of its own making.
No sooner had the dust settled on the news of the recapture of Mr Smith, another disturbing report relating to another wearer of an ankle bracelet emerged.
But unlike Mr Smith, Vishal Singh, of Carapichaima, was found dead.
Monitoring authorities reportedly lost Mr Singh’s signal at some stage and on Thursday approached police at Couva. The body was found in an area where the signal had last been transmitted from.
Why the signal went dead is unclear; this is another baffling situation.
Still, these cases are far from the norm.
Since 2021, scores have been placed on bail with ankle bracelets. Up until April 2022, 38 people were successfully subject to monitoring, with at least 350 devices available for use by May last year.
But if cases like the recent ones continue to occur, they will undermine the trustworthiness of this sentencing option in the long run. That defeats the purpose of their introduction.
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