“Crime”, The Trojan Horse For Colonial Control

The concept of “crime” is not a fixed, objective reality but a fluid and politically potent construct which has been meticulously weaponized to serve the interests of power. Crime is in fact a dialectical product of the very systems of domination it purportedly challenges. An elusive chameleon, the shifting definitions of crime justify the expansion of state control, the suppression of dissent, and the advancement of imperial projects, both domestically and globally. Whether “high crime” or “low crime” , the rhetoric is rarely about public safety; rather, it is the primary language through which state agencies validate their own existence, and the imperialist state escalates its violence, masking the carceral and militaristic enforcement of social order to maintain hegemony under the guise of moral necessity. This manipulation reveals a continuum of control, where the domestic police state and global imperialism are not separate entities but interconnected systems using the same logic of criminalization to manage populations and resources.

Within the United States, the discourse on crime functions as the engine of domestic imperialism, particularly over the African/Black internal colony. The bipartisan commitment to “tough-on-crime” policies has systematically normalized the criminalization of poverty and Blackness, creating a populace conditioned to accept ever-more repressive measures. The tragedy is not just a figure like Donald Trump’s brazenness, but the Democratic Party’s decades-long failure to dismantle the very systems that enable it.

This foundation is starkly visible in the paradox of Baltimore. Under Mayor Brandon Scott’s “low crime” tour, the city is presented as a success story of managed violence. Yet, this “success” is predicated on the validation of a working police state: a city occupied via the Department of Defense’s 1033 program, which militarizes local police with surplus military hardware; enmeshed in “deadly exchange” programs where US police train with Israeli occupation forces, exchanging tactics of occupation; targeted by federal initiatives like Operation Relentless Pursuit; and subjected to proposals for a “Cop City” and a billion-dollar jail. As Scott pronounces Baltimore as the latest Wakanda safe haven, Baltimore City Police murdered Bilal “BJ”  Abdullah, Pytorcatcha Clarke-Brooks, and Dontae Milton in just 2 weeks. These murders, however, are not part of the “low crime” discussion. Here, “low crime” is not an indicator of safety or well-being as purported, but a metric of efficient pacification of people, demonstrating how a population can be governed through preemptive criminalization and militarized containment.

In direct contrast, Donald Trump’s declaration of “high crime” in Washington, D.C. served as the validation for a different, though related, state objective: the overt militarization of an alleged failed police state. His announcement to deploy the National Guard, framed as a necessary crackdown, marked a dangerous escalation in the federal government’s militarization of the nation’s capital. This move, following the Democrat-backed “Secure DC” Omnibus bill, exposes the seamless continuum of carceral logic. Where the “low crime” narrative justifies a perpetual, normalized occupation, the “high crime” narrative justifies a sudden, overt infusion of military force, effectively blurring the lines between policing and soldiering—a process of policification of the military, as noted by scholar Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelley.  This same framework was deployed months earlier in L.A. to justify aggressive immigration policies, where the foundational narrative of “criminals” pouring across the border legitimized the mass deployment of National Guard troops and provided a pretext for aggressive deportation campaigns. With the subjective use of criminalization to wield repressive policy and action, it becomes increasingly clear how the oppression of immigrants is very relevant for Black communities.

This domestic playbook is exported directly to foreign policy, where “crime” becomes the pretext for neocolonial aggression and the denial of sovereignty and self-determination. The United States’ bounty on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, signalling alleged “criminal drug cartel activity,” is a quintessential example of criminalization as an act of economic and political warfare. This narrative was eagerly adopted by Trinidad and Tobago’s returned Prime Minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, who has aligned herself with far-right ideologies mirroring Trump’s rhetoric. By constantly alluding to her nation’s “high crime” as a direct result of Venezuela, she acts as a neocolonial lapdog, endangering Caribbean solidarity and providing a humanitarian veil for alignment with U.S. military aggression. This cynical blame-shifting obscures a vicious cycle: the United States, through its lax firearm regulations, actively enables the cross-border proliferation of weapons that fuel the very violence destabilizing Caribbean nations. Having exported the tools of violence, the U.S. then offers itself as the necessary military “solution,” a strategy that distracts from its own culpability and strengthens its imperial grip under the pretext of solving a problem it engineered. The crisis in the Caribbean is not fundamentally rooted in violence and crime but in the enduring legacies of imperialism and neoliberalism, which perpetuate systemic inequality, poverty, and underdevelopment.

Nowhere is this dynamic more blatant than in the UN/US-led Kenyan occupation of Haiti. The denial of Haitian sovereignty stands as a testament to a global elite consensus that undermines popular democracy. The deployment of foreign forces, under the guise of combating criminal gangs, is the international manifestation of the “high crime” justification, used to nullify a nation’s right to self-determination. This systematic suppression is a live execution of strategies akin to those in the U.S.’s Global Fragility Act (GFA). The GFA, under the pretext of “preventing conflicts” and “promoting stability,” rebrands US imperialism by leveraging neocolonial governments and local structures to enact policies aimed solely at upholding U.S. global power. Domestically, this looks like aggressive policing that leads to over-policing and racial profiling rather than safety (ie. War Against Crime). Internationally, it looks like Kenya policing Haiti. The recently formed “Alliance for Security, Justice, and Development Strategy” for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) confirms this model. While framed as regional, it is led by US, Interpol, and Europol, prioritizing foreign security interests over local sovereignty and development, effectively creating an international carceral network.

Ultimately, “crime” is the key rhetorical device in the vast project of control over civil society. It is a fallacy because its definition is never neutral; it is engineered by the state to serve the state. It is weaponized because it provides the moral and political capital to expand budgets, deploy troops, build jails, overthrow governments, and occupy nations—all while presenting the aggressor as the guardian of order. If, as theorized, crime is not mere individual deviance but a phenomenon conditioned by the same structures that produce domination, then the modern imperialist state’s power to define criminality becomes its ultimate neocolonial instrument, crafting legal legitimacy for its own material interests.

Furthermore, the Western imperialist framing of “crime” as the arbitrary act of an individual against the social order is exposed as a profound hypocrisy by its enthusiastic support for state-sanctioned violence. This double standard is glaringly evident in the stance of the US and its partners, including CARICOM states that hyperfixate on localized crime, yet all offer little to no criticism of Israel’s genocidal acts and annexation of Gaza, instead continue to support it under the guise of a “right to defend itself,” actively enabling a project of collective punishment in Gaza that meets the legal definitions of war crimes and famine. As children die of starvation (their deaths meticulously tallied by a besieged Health Ministry) the U.S. government withholds the means of survival but rolls out the red carpet for the architect of this catastrophe, Prime Minister Netanyahu, treating an internationally recognized war criminal as an honored statesman. This reveals a brutal calculus: their condemnation of “crime” is a malleable ideology, a tool designed to criminalize the resistance of the oppressed while legitimizing the systemic, industrial-scale violence of the oppressor, proving that the “rule-based international order” is merely the rule of the dominant.

Ultimately, the path to liberation necessitates a fundamental shift in understanding the very concept of “crime” as a political construct engineered to subdue resistance and legitimize state violence. This deconstruction is not an end but a prerequisite, clearing the ideological ground to expose how the language of criminality has been a primary weapon of imperialism and white supremacy. This is not merely a theoretical exercise, but in the battle of ideas in the war waged against the colonized and the poor, it is an essential foundation for how we organize to fight for peoples-centered human rights, collective self-determination, and the material needs of people over the predatory demands of the state and capital.

Erica Caines is a writer and organizer in Baltimore and the DMV. Caines is the Field Operations and Membership coordinator of The Black Alliance For Peace, a member of the Black working-class centered Ujima People’s Progress Party in Maryland, and founder of #LiberationThroughReading, providing African children with books that represent them.

Originally published in Hood Communist.

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=21664

#colonialism #hoodCommunist #LiberationThroughReading #repression #violence

Bound by Imperialism: Trinidad’s Role in U.S. Agenda

Trinidad is experiencing an unprecedented crime wave. The state has responded by militarizing the police and loosening restrictions on their actions. To understand these mechanisms, one must look at Trinidad’s relationship with the United States.

Trinidad and Tobago has recently declared a state of emergency in response to an alarming surge in violent crime, culminating in a murder toll of 623 for 2024—the highest recorded in the nation’s history. This decision grants police the authority to conduct warrantless searches and detain suspects for up to 48 hours, reflecting the government’s desperation to address escalating gang-related violence and narcotics trafficking. However, this domestic crisis cannot be understood in isolation; it is deeply entangled with the country’s economic woes, neoliberal policies, and an expanding militarized presence shaped by its partnership with the United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM).

Neoliberalism: A Catalyst For Crime

The crime wave in Trinidad and Tobago is a symptom of deep-seated structural inequalities rather than a mere law enforcement issue. High unemployment, inadequate public services, and systemic corruption have eroded public trust, leaving many feeling abandoned by the state. Neoliberal policies, which prioritize market efficiency over social welfare, exacerbate these challenges by dismantling public institutions and concentrating wealth in the hands of a few. Emphasizing privatization, deregulation, and reduced government spending, these policies have widened income inequality and weakened social safety nets. Higher utility rates , the sale of state assets to foreign multinationals , and regressive taxation disproportionately burden the working class. This growing inequality is starkly visible in the education and healthcare systems, where access is often determined by socio-economic status, fostering social unrest and driving crime, as economic despair pushes individuals toward desperate means of survival. Similarly, insufficient governance and failing state institutions further marginalize the most vulnerable, perpetuating cycles of poverty and crime. The government’s reliance on punitive measures, such as the state of emergency, does little to address these root causes, instead criminalizing the very communities most affected by systemic neglect.

Trinidad and Tobago’s economic structure has long been tethered to its energy sector, which accounts for over 36% of GDP (2022). Despite this wealth in natural resources, the nation’s dual economy—split between the energy sector and services such as distribution, hospitality, and financial services—has left it vulnerable to global commodity price fluctuations. Trinidad and Tobago’s financial reality is rooted in a legacy where energy independence was never a goal, much like its political independence failed to prioritize true nation-building and sovereignty. As Law and Industrial Relations Specialist Clyde Weatherhead noted , “ at the advent of Independence, the economy experienced difficulties as oil prices slumped in 1962 and other sectors were not creating jobs or foreign exchange earnings as projected.”

The nation’s proposed reliance on Venezuelan gas—subject to U.S. permission—underscores its vulnerability to imperialist dictates, rather than fostering self-reliance or energy security. This dependence not only undermines Venezuelan sovereignty but also exposes Trinidad and Tobago to greater external control without guaranteeing stable energy resources. Economic instability, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on tourism-dependent Caribbean economies, has fueled unemployment and poverty. These conditions have created fertile ground for crime, as marginalized individuals, facing limited opportunities, turn to illicit activities for survival.

The SOUTHCOM Capture of Trinidad & Tobago

The government’s response to crime is heavily influenced by its growing partnership with SOUTHCOM. This relationship, formalized through military exercises such as Operation Tradewinds , positions Trinidad and Tobago as a key player in a broader U.S.-led strategy to militarize the Caribbean. These exercises, framed as efforts to counter transnational criminal organizations, provide humanitarian assistance, and conduct disaster relief, mask their true intent: ensuring U.S. hegemony in the region. Sponsored by SOUTHCOM, it involves the participation of multiple nations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and European allies, alongside Caribbean states. While ostensibly about regional security, these operations serve as conduits for U.S. influence, allowing it to maintain a neo-colonial presence under the guise of cooperation. Terms like “humanitarian assistance” and “transnational crime” become substitutes for suppressing grassroots resistance and protecting U.S. corporate interests.

Trinidad and Tobago’s partnership with SOUTHCOM reflects a broader pattern of U.S. imperialism in the Caribbean. By positioning itself as a “lapdog” to U.S. policies, the government sacrifices national sovereignty and undermines its ability to pursue independent development strategies. This complicity ensures the continuation of a neo-colonial relationship in which Trinidad and Tobago’s resources and strategic location are leveraged to serve U.S. interests.

The influx of firearms from the United States , a major contributor to the nation’s crime problem, underscores the hypocrisy of this arrangement. While the U.S. advocates for increased militarization to combat crime, its own policies enable the proliferation of weapons that fuel violence in Trinidad and Tobago. This cycle of dependency and exploitation illustrates the inherent contradictions of U.S.-led security initiatives.

The parallels between the U.S.’s use of crime to justify the militarized occupation of African communities and its role in fostering a militarized Caribbean region are striking. Just as narratives of “crime prevention” serve to rationalize the suppression of grassroots movements and justify the expansion of militarized police forces in African communities, domestically, the same logic underpins U.S. engagement in the Caribbean. By framing military exercises and partnerships like Operation Tradewinds as necessary for combating “transnational crime” and promoting “regional stability,” the U.S. advances its hegemonic ambitions and entrenches neoliberal policies that prioritize corporate and imperial interests over local autonomy and development. The militarization of both domestic spaces and the Caribbean underscores a broader strategy: the consolidation of power through surveillance, force, and economic subjugation, all while cloaked in the rhetoric of security and aid.

Historical Context: A Legacy of Intervention

Trinidad and Tobago’s current predicament is not without historical precedent . The 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada marked a turning point in Caribbean geopolitics, embedding U.S. militarization within the region. At the time, conservative Caribbean leaders, seeking political longevity, aligned with U.S. interests to suppress revolutionary movements and leftist ideologies. This alliance expanded security initiatives across the region but failed to address the underlying economic challenges. Instead, it fortified U.S. security agencies and bolstered weapons manufacturers while leaving Caribbean nations mired in economic stagnation.

Opposition to this militarization was not universal. Countries like Trinidad and Tobago, and Belize resisted U.S. interference , advocating for sovereignty and regional peace. However, their voices were often drowned out by pro-U.S. governments eager to benefit from security aid. Today, the legacy of these alliances persists, as Trinidad and Tobago finds itself enmeshed in a web of U.S.-led initiatives that prioritize security over socio-economic development.

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM), established to foster economic integration and cooperation, has revealed stark contradictions in its stance on regional militarization, particularly in the case of Haiti . While it proclaims the Caribbean a “zone of peace,” CARICOM has failed to counter U.S. influence and instead remains complicit. Member states’ participation in U.S.-sponsored military exercises like Operation Tradewinds undermines claims of regional sovereignty and non-intervention.

Moreover, CARICOM’s inability to address economic disparities driving crime exposes its limitations as a regional body. Without a unified strategy to challenge neoliberal policies and their consequences, it perpetuates the very conditions it aims to resolve.

The state of emergency in Trinidad and Tobago only further highlights the intersections of crime, economic inequality, and imperialism in the Caribbean. The government’s partnership with SOUTHCOM, while framed as a solution, reinforces a cycle of dependency and exploitation. True progress demands a holistic approach that centers economic justice, regional sovereignty, and grassroots empowerment, a People(s) Centered Human Rights approach)

Erica Caines is a writer and organizer in Baltimore and the DMV. Caines is the Field Operations and Membership coordinator of The Black Alliance For Peace, a member of the Black working-class centered Ujima People’s Progress Party in Maryland, and founder of #LiberationThroughReading, providing African children with books that represent them.

source: Black Agenda Report

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=13674

#blackLiberation #caribbean #colonialism #imperialism #LiberationThroughReading #trinidad