Akash Sama­roo

The Gov­ern­ment is mov­ing to over­haul Trinidad and To­ba­go’s pro­ba­tion sys­tem by in­tro­duc­ing “split sen­tenc­ing,” a mea­sure that com­bines jail time with su­per­vised re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion, in a bid to re­duce re­peat of­fend­ing and ease prison over­crowd­ing.

The Pro­ba­tion of Of­fend­ers (Amend­ment) Bill, 2026, was de­bat­ed yes­ter­day in the Sen­ate. At the heart of the amend­ment is the in­tro­duc­tion of hy­brid sen­tenc­ing. Cur­rent­ly, ju­di­cial of­fi­cers gen­er­al­ly choose be­tween a term of im­pris­on­ment or a pro­ba­tion or­der. Un­der the new leg­is­la­tion, the court will be em­pow­ered to im­pose both a cus­to­di­al sen­tence fol­lowed by a manda­to­ry pe­ri­od of pro­ba­tion.