Special Crime Zones spark mixed reactions

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Founder and di­rec­tor of the Black Agen­da Project and chair­man of the Na­tion­al Li­brary and In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem Au­thor­i­ty (NALIS), Dr David Muham­mad, is hop­ing that the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSOS) will not be used in a racial­ly dis­crim­i­na­to­ry man­ner or to stig­ma­tise com­mu­ni­ties.

“If this is done prop­er­ly, then, for ex­am­ple, com­mu­ni­ties like Laven­tille have had sig­nif­i­cant­ly few­er mur­ders over the last eight years than many oth­er com­mu­ni­ties across Trinidad that may still have a pos­i­tive im­age and rep­u­ta­tion in­tact, as they have not been neg­a­tive­ly la­belled. So, there must be the strength in the ma­chin­ery of the sys­tem to not en­gage in racial pro­fil­ing, youth stereo­typ­ing, and res­i­den­tial-area dis­crim­i­na­tion. If this can be done with­out these im­ped­i­ments in the process, then I be­lieve it can work well.”

The mat­ter will be brought to Par­lia­ment to­mor­row and will re­place the State of Emer­gency, which is legal­ly due to come to an end by the end of the month. The de­tails of the zones and how they are to be po­liced will be ven­ti­lat­ed dur­ing the de­bate.

Muham­mad added, “My un­der­stand­ing is that this is one of the ap­proach­es that seems to be agreed to by both Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion, based on po­si­tions tak­en dur­ing the last 10 years or so, and I see there be­ing both ad­van­tages and dis­ad­van­tages. My con­cern, how­ev­er, is that these zones must be se­lect­ed based on re­al and ac­tu­al cur­rent crime rates and sta­tis­tics (in­clud­ing white-col­lar crime), and not on past stig­ma, rep­u­ta­tion, fear, or sus­pi­cion of these com­mu­ni­ties.”

He added that ar­eas where peo­ple sell and con­sume il­le­gal nar­cotics must be re­gard­ed as equal­ly, or even more dan­ger­ous than those where the im­porters live. Muham­mad said ar­eas where mon­ey laun­der­ing and drug traf­fick­ing take place, and where the per­pe­tra­tors own large busi­ness­es and con­trol con­sid­er­able sec­tors of the econ­o­my, should al­so be in­clud­ed in the zones.

Pas­tor and so­cial ad­vo­cate Clive Dot­tin al­so wel­comed the ZOSOS, say­ing they had worked well in Ja­maica in ad­dress­ing lev­els of crime in sup­posed hotspot ar­eas.

“It is a suc­cess sto­ry and is use­ful in a post-SoE pe­ri­od.”

He added that at the end of a State of Emer­gency, it is im­por­tant to have some­thing in place to con­tin­ue the gains made. He stressed, how­ev­er, that along with hard polic­ing, there should be so­cial in­ter­ven­tion, in­clud­ing in­put from non-gov­ern­men­tal or­gan­i­sa­tions, re­li­gious bod­ies, and sport­ing groups.

Mean­while, ac­tivist Abeo Jack­son wrote on her Face­book page:

“Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions … So many par­al­lels to be drawn. None of them good. All of them an­ti-black. An­ti-poor. An­ti-work­ing class. All of them lean­ing in­to trib­al po­lar­i­ties. All very MA­GA. All very au­thor­i­tar­i­an. All pro-sta­tus quo. All symp­to­matic of sys­tems of op­pres­sion op­er­at­ing ex­act­ly the way they have al­ways been de­signed to. Very pur­pose­ful slap in the face to the Zone of Peace.”