Juvenile Delinquency in Trinidad and Tobago: Challenges for Social Policy and Caribbean Criminology

• Author: Ramesh Deosaran and Derek Chadee
• Pages: 159-195

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JUVENILE DELINQUENCY IN TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

INTRODUCTION

This paper on juvenile delinquency arises

from an ongoing research project2 in

Trinidad and Tobago3 entitled ‘Juvenile

Justice, Research and Policy’ conducted by

the Centre for Criminology and Criminal

Justice, University of the West Indies (St

Augustine Campus). As a discipline,

criminology has a relatively young existence

at the University and the region as a whole.4

There is deep, widespread concern over

crime and its attendant problems across the

Caribbean. However, attempts at systematic,

sustained research in criminology have only

recently begun.

While there is an abundant literature on

delinquency in North America and other

parts of the world (e.g., Binder et al. l997,

Jensen and Rojek l992, Weis et al. l996), this

paper is not geared to provide a review of

such literature. Rather, the paper seeks, as

an initial part of an ongoing project, to find

out what kinds of youths are placed in the

juvenile homes of a Caribbean country

(Trinidad and Tobago) and what promise

these youths hold for rehabilitation. It is

hoped that with such data, and apart from

practical applications, some theory

construction and cross-cultural comparisons

on juvenile delinquency could subsequently

emerge. Further, while no systematic data

has been collected on the relationship, it is

felt that many of the delinquents in these

juvenile homes continue to become

‘hardened’ criminals later on and quite often

end up in the adult prison (Pryce 1976,

Sampson 1994). Notwithstanding the

Juvenile

Delinquency in

Trinidad and

Tobago:

Challenges for

Social Policy

and Caribbean

Criminology1

Ramesh Deosaran and

Derek Chadee

Eight

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CRIME, DELINQUENCY AND JUSTICE

relatively modest objective of this paper, some brief comments on pertinent

literature in the Caribbean are useful for contextualising this particular paper.

CARIBBEAN CRIMINOLOGY: A BRIEF LOOK

There have been some work on the historical (e.g., Trotman l986), institutional

(e.g., Chadee l996, Deosaran l985) and socio-political (e.g., Headley l996, King

l997, Mahabir l985) aspects of crime in the Caribbean. The illegal drug trade has

also received recent attention (Griffith l997). Other researchers in several Caribbean

countries have begun basic research in police performance and crime (e.g., Bennett

and Lynch l996, Harriott l997) and poverty and crime (Deosaran l998, World

Bank l997).

Circumscribing much of this work has been a repeated quest for a ‘Caribbean

Criminology’ (Bennett and Lynch l996, Cain l996, Pryce l976). Such quest,

however, as persuasive as it is, has generally been at a rather macro-level, or largely

polemical (e.g., Pryce l976) still requiring specific lines of sustained research. The

pioneering work by Bennett et al. is providing a cumulative understanding of the

macro social and economic conditions which may affect the rate of particular

crimes in some Caribbean territories. Their own appeal for micro analyses is also

noteworthy. However, delinquency has not been identified as a priority area,

except in the case of Cain’s exploratory analysis which focused on the

administrative anomalies within the juvenile justice system in Trinidad and Tobago

(1996). Indeed, in their paper entitled, ‘Towards a Caribbean Criminology,’ Bennett

and Lynch (l996, 31) wrote: ‘If we are to develop a generative approach to the

construction of a Caribbean Criminology with special attention to linkages across

levels of analysis, we must begin to collect data which is appropriate to such

analysis.’

Touching on methodology, Arthur and Marenin (l995) proposed several

reasons why approaches to criminological explanations in developing countries

should be different from those used in developed countries. They emphasised

the ‘case study’ approach as most useful for examining crime in the Caribbean.

Attacking the relevance of ‘traditional’ criminology to the Caribbean, Pryce (1976,

5) stated:

The neglect of the study of crime is particularly hard to justify in the Third World

context of the Caribbean where it is generally recognised that a relationship exists

between modernisation and crime...A theoretical foundation for a Caribbean

Criminology can be found in the perspective of the New Criminology...Among

traditionalists, there is also the tendency towards the interpretation of crime and

delinquency in purely quantitative and statistical terms, because of the need to

appear “scientific” in the presentation of evidence.

It seems that a conceptual and empirical grip on ‘crime in the Caribbean’

generally is indeed considered a priority, but with the implicit assumption that

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more focused attention would flow down to delinquency and youth crimes. This

may be a mixed blessing. We may learn from the shortcomings of others. The

picture of theory and research as it has developed elsewhere does have its grey

areas, especially in the area of delinquency and youth crimes. For example, in

their attempt to find some order into the existing research on family and

delinquency, Wells and Rankin (l991,71) felt compelled to state: ‘Although the

empirical evidence on broken homes and delinquency is large and diverse, it is

surprisingly incomplete and disappointingly inconclusive.’

As the theoretical perspective fluctuates from the micro to the macro, from

the radical to the conservative, from the sociological to the psychological, policy

makers and indeed young researchers experience some discomfort with the range

of competing theories of crime. Theories of delinquency in particular range from

a structural, social conflict premise to the self-restraint model posed by Gottfredson

and Hirschi (l990) with a number of in-between ones - social psychological in

essence - such as differential association and strain theories. The self-restraint

model, essentially a very parsimonious expression of moral individualism, has

recently achieved surprising popularity given the prominence of opposing, more

widely-framed structural theories.

In assessing the relative value of development and general theories of crime

and delinquency, Paternoster and Brame (l997, 49) concluded:

We find that the evidence is not faithful to either a pure/static model of or a pure

developmental model of crime. Our findings appeal to a theoretical middle ground

that assumes that pathways to crime are more similar than different and that

allows for a causal effect of past offending and life experiences on future criminality.

These shifts are worthy of note by Caribbean researchers not only for framing

a Caribbean Criminology but also for seeking cross-cultural comparisons.

Regarding cross-cultural research, Cohen and Short (1958, 22), many years ago,

made the point:

It is probable that delinquent subcultures have distinct emphases in different

societies and these can be related to differences in the respective social systems of

which they are the products. Comparative research in the sociology of delinquent

subcultures is to be most strongly encouraged for it is bound to highlight aspects

of delinquent behaviour in the American scene which we are prone to overlook

and to make them to be object of theoretical concern.

This paper is a preliminary attempt to help heal this cross-cultural gap. There

is a related issue of which Caribbean researchers should take note. Some existing

theories in criminology are not so distinct from one another. For example, some

brands of ‘radical criminology’ themselves are not without functionalist

underpinnings. Others have some room for theoretical integration. For example,