Murders, shootings, woundings, and domestic violence cost TT more than $6 billion in 2022, according to a study presented at the two-day symposium on crime and violence by the Inter American Development Bank.
Rutgers University Professor Andres Rengifo revealed a study showing that violence in TT consumed 4.07 per cent of the nation’s GDP last year.
Last year, murders alone cost the country about $1.4 billion. Rengifo said each of these murders cost US$350,000 or more than $2 million, accounting for 21 per cent of the costs of treating with violence.
Medical expenses alone for a shooting victim is about $80,000, as revealed in a breakdown of the costs behind interpersonal violence. The mental health aspect behind it costs about $50,000. The highest cost of a murder comes in productivity which was estimated to be a $1.2 billion cost to the country, but Rengifo did not detail specifics on how the study quantified productivity.
TT also spent close to $93.9 million on criminal justice costs prior to and after each murder. About $45.89 million is spent on policing, more than $10 million in the judiciary, $9.4 million at the Attorney General’s office, $27 million for imprisonment and a little over a million for parole and probation.
Even enacting the death penalty as suggested by many could cost taxpayers millions, said the Prime Minister while speaking to the media at a post-symposium question and answer session.
“Every single person who is convicted and for whom the penalty is death, they have an automatic appeal in the Privy Council. If you are fighting that what you are fighting is a million-dollar or two, or five, or ten million-dollar expense, which will hardly bring success. Every single person on death row is going to cost the taxpayer millions of dollars as that person is fighting for his or her life,” said Dr Rowley.
Despite the great costs behind murders, it only accounts for one per cent of all the violence in TT. Last year, TT recorded 605 murders, but it also recorded 17,365 woundings and shootings and more 59,630 reports of domestic violence with physical violence.
“Violence varies. They don’t take the same form and they don’t have the same impact and they cannot be addressed in the same way,” Rengifo said. “Gang violence is typically associated with murders, but we also see that it could be showing up in woundings, in school fights and other forms of violence that are less likely to be reported.”
[caption id="attachment_1011797" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Police at the murder scene of Alex Anthony "Papa" Cooper at Logwood Park, Scarborough, Tobago, on April 9. - David Reid[/caption]
Woundings and shootings cost medical facilities in 2022 more than $768 million, with $276 million spent on direct medical assistance after being wounded and more than $391 million in counselling. TT also spent about $121 million pre- and post- offence criminal justice costs. Private security as well also garnered about $56 million.
Rowley, in his opening speech at the symposium on Monday, said each
