Attzs warns ZOSOs could stigmatise communities

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Pro­tect law-abid­ing cit­i­zens re­sid­ing in “hotspots’’ from be­com­ing col­lat­er­al dam­age and be­ing stig­ma­tised by the Spe­cial Zones law.

That was the call from In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Dr Mar­lene Attzs dur­ing yes­ter­day’s Sen­ate de­bate on Gov­ern­ment’s Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSOS) Bill.

Attzs said it was a bill which pro­pos­es the use of ex­tra­or­di­nary mea­sures to con­front an ex­tra­or­di­nary chal­lenge: T&T’s per­sis­tent and deeply trou­bling lev­els of vi­o­lent crime.

She not­ed the 2024 T&T Crim­i­nal Dy­nam­ics Study by UWI’s Dr Randy Seep­er­sad, which in­clud­ed an es­ti­ma­tion that T&T has over 180 ac­tive gangs, in­volv­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1,700 in­di­vid­u­als, and that near­ly 40 per cent of all mur­ders are gang re­lat­ed.

Attzs said the fear of crime is re­al.

“Cit­i­zens’ suf­fer­ing is re­al. The ur­gency for ac­tion, very re­al. Fam­i­lies are trau­ma­tised. Busi­ness­es close ear­ly. Com­mu­ni­ties re­treat be­hind gates and fear. A con­cern is that young peo­ple grow up be­liev­ing that vi­o­lence is nor­mal,” she said, adding crime be­comes an in­vis­i­ble tax paid by every cit­i­zen and the State.

“But ur­gency must not give way to short-term think­ing. Fear must nev­er over­ride rea­son. And de­ci­sive ac­tion must nev­er dis­place con­sti­tu­tion­al care,” Attzs stressed.

“The pow­er to de­clare a com­mu­ni­ty a zone is an ex­tra­or­di­nary one. It must there­fore rest on ex­tra­or­di­nary jus­ti­fi­ca­tion: cred­i­ble crime da­ta, ver­i­fied in­tel­li­gence, pat­terns of vi­o­lent ac­tiv­i­ty, and demon­stra­ble threats to pub­lic safe­ty.”

Attzs said no ad­min­is­tra­tion has been im­mune from crime’s ef­fects, and no gov­ern­ment has found a per­fect so­lu­tion.

“This is a new ad­min­is­tra­tion/I be­lieve it de­serves the op­por­tu­ni­ty to craft and im­ple­ment poli­cies they be­lieve can re­store or­der and ad­dress the crime scourge, but that op­por­tu­ni­ty must be lo­cat­ed in the con­text of a co­her­ent crime strat­e­gy.”

Attzs said Ja­maica’s ZOSO mod­el and oth­er re­gion­al/in­ter­na­tion­al bod­ies’ re­search il­lus­trate the po­ten­tial and lim­i­ta­tions of such in­ter­ven­tions.

“Ev­i­dence con­sis­tent­ly shows en­hanced se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures may sup­press vi­o­lence in the short term, but rarely ad­dress the un­der­ly­ing dri­vers of crim­i­nal­i­ty. Crim­i­nal net­works adapt, re­or­gan­ise, re­lo­cate. Emer­gency pow­ers may cool hotspots tem­porar­i­ly, but rarely dis­man­tle crim­i­nal sys­tems.”

One of the most im­por­tant is­sues in the bill, Attzs warned, is the dan­ger of stig­ma­tis­ing com­mu­ni­ties.

“We must be care­ful that in our de­ter­mi­na­tion to con­front crim­i­nal­i­ty, we do not in­ad­ver­tent­ly stig­ma­tise en­tire com­mu­ni­ties. There is a dan­ger that law-abid­ing cit­i­zens re­sid­ing in some so-called “hotspots’’—hard­work­ing par­ents, stu­dents with am­bi­tion, el­der­ly res­i­dents who have en­dured decades of hard­ship—that they be­come col­lat­er­al dam­age to any pol­i­cy we im­ple­ment.

“Our ob­jec­tive must be to iso­late crim­i­nals, not to la­bel com­mu­ni­ties; we need to pro­tect res­i­dents, not to turn them in­to silent vic­tims of dis­crim­i­na­tion. This con­cern be­comes par­tic­u­lar­ly acute when we ex­am­ine the bill’s clause em­pow­er­ing joint forces to re­quire per­sons with­in a zone to dis­close their per­son­al in­for­ma­tion.”

Attzs con­tin­ued, “While op­er­a­tional­ly un­der­stand­able, re­peat­ed and in­dis­crim­i­nate use of such pow­ers risks em­bed­ding a per­cep­tion that en­tire neigh­bour­hoods are un­der per­ma­nent sus­pi­cion. Re­search from oth­er ju­ris­dic­tions shows that once a com­mu­ni­ty is brand­ed a ‘spe­cial zone’, the stig­ma of­ten lingers long af­ter the op­er­a­tion ends.

“Em­ploy­ers hes­i­tate. Banks hes­i­tate. Schools hes­i­tate. Chil­dren be­gin to in­ter­nalise the be­lief that where they come from de­fines who they can be­come.”

Attzs cit­ed sit­u­a­tions where par­ents/guardians of SEA ex­am­i­na­tion stu­dents use some­body else’s ad­dress for fear of the child be­ing “zoned” in the ex­am.

“It’s un­can­ny, it’s the same ter­mi­nol­o­gy we’re us­ing here ... a cit­i­zen’s ad­dress must nev­er be­come a mark of sus­pi­cion that lim­its their ac­cess to dig­ni­ty or op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

The op­er­a­tional pres­sures fac­ing pro­tec­tive ser­vices was al­so not­ed.

“As we ap­proach the sea­son that we call the Great­est Show on Earth, a pe­ri­od that tra­di­tion­al­ly re­quires an in­ten­si­fied po­lice pres­ence to man­age large crowds, in­creased mo­bil­i­ty, and height­ened pub­lic safe­ty risks, it’s im­por­tant we re­main re­al­is­tic about what is be­ing asked of our of­fi­cers,” she said.

Nor can of­fi­cers sim­ply be tak­en from rou­tine pa­trol and giv­en ex­pand­ed zone pow­ers, she added, warn­ing of height­ened com­mu­ni­ty ten­sions and po­ten­tial con­fronta­tions with res­i­dents.

Cit­ing Law As­so­ci­a­tion cau­tions on the bill, Attzs said, “As a civic-mind­ed per­son, I sup­port any de­ci­sive ac­tion against crime, but I do so in the firm be­lief that last­ing se­cu­ri­ty and jus­tice can on­ly be achieved when jus­tice, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and so­cial in­vest­ment move for­ward to­geth­er.”