Criminologist warns ZOSO plan may fail to address violent crime

Da­reece Po­lo

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

Even be­fore Par­lia­ment con­venes to de­bate the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al to es­tab­lish Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) as a crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy, a crim­i­nol­o­gist is warn­ing the ap­proach will fail to ad­dress the roots of vi­o­lent crime.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dau­rius Figueira was re­spond­ing to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie’s an­nounce­ment that the Gov­ern­ment will ta­ble the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion, ti­tled The Law Re­form (Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions) (Spe­cial Se­cu­ri­ty and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Mea­sures) Bill, 2026, when Par­lia­ment meets to­day for the first time this year fol­low­ing the Christ­mas break.

The bill is in­tend­ed to re­place the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency, which is set to ex­pire lat­er this month. If passed, it would grant the Prime Min­is­ter the au­thor­i­ty to des­ig­nate high-crime com­mu­ni­ties as “Spe­cial Zones,” al­low­ing for search­es with­out a war­rant and cur­fews of up to 72 hours.

Figueira ac­knowl­edged that the mod­el was bor­rowed from Ja­maica but said re­search shows it has failed to curb or­gan­ised crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty there.

“My pub­lished re­search on Ja­maica shows that the struc­ture of the il­lic­it trades in Ja­maica, the op­er­a­tions of lo­cal transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crimes and for­eign transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime in Ja­maica con­sti­tute an en­vi­ron­ment of crim­i­nal­i­ty that ZOSOs are in­ef­fec­tive against,” he said.

He al­so dis­missed claims that the de­cline in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s mur­der rate dur­ing the State of Emer­gency was ev­i­dence of the suc­cess of crime-fight­ing mea­sures. The coun­try record­ed 369 homi­cides in 2025, com­pared with 626 in 2024, a de­cline of 42 per­cent.

Figueira said sim­i­lar nar­ra­tives have emerged in Ja­maica, where mur­ders fell be­low 700 last year for the first time since 1994. Ja­maica’s Deputy Prime Min­is­ter and Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and Peace, Dr Ho­race Chang, said the fig­ure rep­re­sent­ed more than a 40 per cent year-on-year re­duc­tion, with over 470 lives spared com­pared with 2024.

Ac­cord­ing to Figueira, the de­clines in both coun­tries are not the re­sult of pol­i­cy in­ter­ven­tions but are in­stead linked to shift­ing dy­nam­ics among transna­tion­al crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions.

“The glar­ing drop in the mur­der rate in Ja­maica, as in T&T to­day, is the re­sult of the Pax Mex­i­cana ef­fect, which is sim­ply the op­er­a­tion of two transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime groups in Ja­maica and T&T in com­pe­ti­tion with each oth­er with both ter­ri­to­ries now un­der the con­trol of two or­ders of pow­er in con­flict with each oth­er—the Colom­bian Dons and Pax Mex­i­cana. The fall in the mur­der toll is sim­ply the stage be­fore the fi­nal push for hege­mo­ny is un­leashed,” he warned.

“In both Ja­maica and T&T, states of ex­cep­tion no mat­ter how for­mu­lat­ed and un­leashed sim­ply can­not ar­rest this con­flict when it re­turns to gun vi­o­lence to de­ter­mine which transna­tion­al or­gan­ised group ex­erts hege­mo­ny over both Ja­maica and T&T to­day. Al­ready, the signs are forth­com­ing from the ground in T&T, that is, the en­gage­ment is once again heat­ing up.”

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed ac­knowl­edged pub­lic con­cerns but said ris­ing pub­lic frus­tra­tion with crime has cre­at­ed po­lit­i­cal space for tougher mea­sures.

“I be­lieve we are at the stage in gov­er­nance where the pop­u­la­tion is pre­pared to al­low the Gov­ern­ment to do what it needs to do to cor­rect the wrongs that have been al­lowed to fes­ter in the so­ci­ety for too long.”

Mo­hammed dis­missed fears of po­lit­i­cal fall­out but said the op­po­si­tion was like­ly to chal­lenge the bill on grounds of per­ceived tar­get­ing.

“It is go­ing to be­come an ar­gu­ment that you’re tar­get­ing op­po­si­tion and PNM con­stituen­cies. But there are hotspots across the is­land, and even hotspots in To­ba­go,” he said.

“Crime is not spe­cif­ic to a race in the coun­try. Crime hits from West­moor­ings all the way to To­co and down the high­way in­to Point Fortin and Ma­yaro and across in To­ba­go.”

The Gov­ern­ment has not iden­ti­fied which com­mu­ni­ties could be des­ig­nat­ed as Spe­cial Zones. How­ev­er, dur­ing the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion led by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, a State of Emer­gency was im­posed with cur­fews in hotspot ar­eas in­clud­ing Port-of-Spain, San Fer­nan­do, Ari­ma, Ch­agua­nas, Diego Mar­tin and San Juan/Laven­tille, all of which were then rep­re­sent­ed by the PNM.

Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Chris­t­ian Birch­wood wel­comed ef­forts aimed at im­prov­ing pub­lic safe­ty but raised con­cerns about the scope of au­thor­i­ty the bill would place in the hands of the Prime Min­is­ter.

“The Prime Min­is­ter and the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil should not be the sole au­thor­i­ties in de­clar­ing a zone. To lend true cred­i­bil­i­ty to this process, the le­gal jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for a ZOSO de­c­la­ra­tion should be pre­sent­ed to a judge in cham­bers. This en­sures that the ‘di­rec­tion of trav­el’ is guid­ed by law and ob­jec­tive ne­ces­si­ty, rather than ex­ec­u­tive dis­cre­tion alone.”

Birch­wood al­so called for greater trans­paren­cy through reg­u­lar re­port­ing.

“This re­port should track the en­tire cy­cle of the ini­tia­tive, from po­lice in­ter­ven­tions to the DPP, through the ju­di­cia­ry, and in­to in­car­cer­a­tion and re­form. The pop­u­la­tion must see what the da­ta is say­ing to en­sure the process re­mains fo­cused on re­sults, not op­tics.”

High­light­ing con­cerns about pro­fil­ing and ac­cess to le­gal reme­dies, he warned against po­ten­tial abus­es.

“We must en­sure that ‘spe­cial op­er­a­tions’ do not be­come a li­cence for the abuse of process. We need clear, ac­ces­si­ble checks and bal­ances that pre­vent bias from be­com­ing the or­der of the day.”

He added that any sus­tained crime-fight­ing ap­proach must pri­ori­tise com­mu­ni­ty well-be­ing.

“Ul­ti­mate­ly, I am ready to sup­port mea­sures that are just and ef­fec­tive. How­ev­er, it is pru­dent to fur­ther in­ter­ro­gate these vari­ables to en­sure that the pur­suit of safe­ty does not come at the per­ma­nent ex­pense of the dig­ni­ty and rights of the peo­ple of Laven­tille East/Mor­vant.”

A for­mer se­nior ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber of the po­lice ser­vice, speak­ing on con­di­tion of anonymi­ty, of­fered a more sup­port­ive view, com­par­ing the pro­pos­al to ex­ist­ing strate­gies.

“The IATF (In­ter-Agency Task Force) ap­proach, where there are spe­cial zones in which pa­trols are done, is some­thing sim­i­lar and has giv­en suc­cess to Trinidad. By adding these as­pects to it, you can on­ly get pos­i­tive re­sults,” the source said.

He added that the Hearts and Minds Foun­da­tion, the com­mu­ni­ty arm of the IATF, was de­signed to im­pact the so­cial is­sues of hotspot com­mu­ni­ties, de­scrib­ing the mea­sure as equal­ly ef­fec­tive.

The pro­posed leg­is­la­tion re­quires a three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to be passed, mean­ing at least 25 of the 41 mem­bers must vote in favour. With the Gov­ern­ment hold­ing 26 seats and the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty hold­ing two, the bill is ex­pect­ed to pass even with­out op­po­si­tion sup­port.

At­tempts to ob­tain com­ment from the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion were un­suc­cess­ful.