Justice Seepersad wants ‘Zones of Support and Safety’ to fight crime

Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad has called on cit­i­zens to cre­ate Zones of Sup­port and Safe­ty, or ZOSAS, with­in homes and com­mu­ni­ties as part of a na­tion­al re­sponse to crime.

Speak­ing at a Moth­er’s Day func­tion host­ed by the Ro­tary Club of Pe­nal on Sat­ur­day, Seep­er­sad said the coun­try could not re­ly sole­ly on the State to solve the crime cri­sis and urged cit­i­zens to be­come more proac­tive in guid­ing and sup­port­ing young peo­ple.

He ref­er­enced the wider na­tion­al de­bate on Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO), a pro­posed se­cu­ri­ty and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment strat­e­gy aimed at tack­ling vi­o­lent crime in hotspot com­mu­ni­ties through joint po­lice and mil­i­tary de­ploy­ment, along­side so­cial in­ter­ven­tion mea­sures. The leg­is­la­tion, how­ev­er, did not se­cure the re­quired sup­port of In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors in Par­lia­ment. He said the im­ple­men­ta­tion of ZOSAS re­quired a col­lec­tive na­tion­al ef­fort.

“The im­ple­men­ta­tion of ZOSAS re­quires us to un­der­stand that it takes a com­mu­ni­ty to pro­tect a com­mu­ni­ty,” Seep­er­sad said.

He said the ini­tia­tive would de­mand a shift in mind­set and be­hav­iour across so­ci­ety.

“This op­er­a­tion will re­quire a de­lib­er­ate cul­tur­al shift, be­hav­iour­al re­cal­i­bra­tion and a re­ori­en­ta­tion of thought, con­duct and at­ti­tude,” he said.

Seep­er­sad warned that si­lence in the face of crime could no longer be ac­cept­ed.

“Si­lence is no longer op­tion­al and all crim­i­nal con­duct must be re­port­ed,” he said.

He al­so called for a firm re­jec­tion of all forms of vi­o­lence, par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in homes.

“A prin­ci­pled and un­com­pro­mis­ing re­jec­tion of vi­o­lence in all its forms must now be em­braced,” Seep­er­sad said.

“With­in our homes, do­mes­tic vi­o­lence can no longer be treat­ed as a pri­vate in­con­ve­nience to be qui­et­ly tol­er­at­ed be­hind closed doors.

“It must in­stead be con­front­ed as both a so­ci­etal and ex­is­ten­tial threat be­cause it desta­bilis­es fam­i­lies, dis­torts child­hood de­vel­op­ment and weak­ens the so­cial fab­ric up­on which na­tion­al progress de­pends.” Seep­er­sad said na­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty could not ex­ist along­side nor­malised vi­o­lence in homes.

“No so­ci­ety can nor­malise vi­o­lence with­in the home while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly as­pir­ing to be­come a so­ci­ety de­fined by se­cu­ri­ty and sta­bil­i­ty,” he said.

Seep­er­sad urged adults to lead by ex­am­ple.

“As adults, we must re­spect our­selves and en­sure that our lan­guage, ac­tions, and choic­es re­main mea­sured, dis­ci­plined, and rea­son­able,” he said.

He al­so stressed the im­por­tance of par­ent­ing and ac­count­abil­i­ty.

“Parental re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and ac­count­abil­i­ty must be pri­ori­tised,” Seep­er­sad said.

He warned that chil­dren learn be­hav­iour by ob­ser­va­tion.

“We must re­mem­ber that our na­tion’s youth ab­sorb moral and eth­i­cal stan­dards by ob­serv­ing the be­hav­iour­al and lifestyle choic­es of adults,” he said.

He called for stronger co­op­er­a­tion be­tween fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties.

“Fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties must work to­geth­er, pool re­sources, and cul­ti­vate en­vi­ron­ments in which every in­di­vid­ual is treat­ed with dig­ni­ty and pro­vid­ed with hope,” Seep­er­sad said.

Seep­er­sad said ZOSAS would re­quire struc­tured in­ter­ven­tion and con­sis­tent guid­ance for young peo­ple.

“ZOSAS will re­quire us to en­sure that cor­rec­tive in­ter­ven­tion and re­spon­si­ble guid­ance are rou­tine­ly en­gaged so that our chil­dren are raised with struc­ture, con­sis­ten­cy, em­pa­thy, ac­count­abil­i­ty and re­spect,” he said.

He said cit­i­zens could not de­pend en­tire­ly on the State to solve so­ci­etal prob­lems.

“If we as­pire to build a na­tion ground­ed in in­tegri­ty, guid­ed by jus­tice, and sus­tained by eq­ui­ty and em­pa­thy, we can­not con­tin­ue to look my­opi­cal­ly to the State to pro­vide every so­lu­tion,” Seep­er­sad said.

He urged a change in pub­lic at­ti­tudes.

“The man­ner in which we view each oth­er must al­so be ad­just­ed as we re­ject the ‘us against them’ men­tal­i­ty and in­stead em­brace the col­lec­tive re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of ‘we,’” he said.

Seep­er­sad en­cour­aged cit­i­zens to use their re­sources to sup­port oth­ers and con­clud­ed by urg­ing na­tion­al uni­ty and sus­tained ef­fort.

“The na­tion­al ef­fort to re­duce crime will on­ly suc­ceed when we col­lec­tive­ly fo­cus up­on course cor­rec­tion and pro­vide con­struc­tive sup­port to our youth and those who re­quire as­sis­tance,” he said.