Crime Bills Signed, but Emergency Areas on Hold

In his interview with the media today, the Attorney General also commented on the recent efforts to tackle crime including the crime bills and the emergency zones.  As it relates to implementing the emergency areas – that is on hold for now. The AG says that the government has seen how policing efforts are working in the hot spots of the city and will be closely monitoring to ensure that it stays that way.

Michael Peyrefitte, Attorney General

“All we have done is made certain crimes come with bigger penalties and to introduce anti-gang legislation to curb the terrorist activities being carried out by the criminal gangs. So, that has been signed. All I have been saying to the public and continue to say to the public, if you are not a gang member or if you are not a person who is a part of an organization whose sole purpose is to commit crime then you don’t have anything to worry about. They are not harassing us in this room because we are not criminals. If you are a criminal then you will be staring down some stiff actions by the police. So, what advice would the criminals would want from me? Stop being a criminal.”

Michael Peyrefitte

Andrea Polanco

“AG, as it relates to the emergency zones, is there some kind of holding off on those emergency zones for now?”

Michael Peyrefitte

“Yes. We were ready and able to invoke those but when we spoke with National Security and they informed us that even though we were preparing those documents to effect those emergency powers, we were also continuing with the different mediation procedures and tactics that we use with people. So, those seem to have been working very well and there isn’t any indication that those are not working. So, as long as those continue to work and as long as we don’t have that level of gang violence that we saw a couple weeks ago then we will hold off on the emergency powers legislation. But we have informed everybody that the minute there is even a sign that that type of activity would continue or remerge, we will have no difficulty in invoking the emergency power situation and then we will ask the Governor General to sign it so that we can act on it immediately if we need to do. But for now, it is on hold. Whether it comes into play it depends on how they behave in terms of criminal activity.”