ZOSO BACK AGAIN

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

As the State of Emer­gency (SoE) ap­proach­es its end, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has an­nounced that the Gov­ern­ment will bring the con­tro­ver­sial Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions leg­is­la­tion back to Par­lia­ment as part of its post-SoE crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy.

Speak­ing in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day, Alexan­der said the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Mea­sure Bill will re­turn to Par­lia­ment, ar­gu­ing that the leg­is­la­tion is in­tend­ed to com­bine tar­get­ed se­cu­ri­ty op­er­a­tions with so­cial in­ter­ven­tion in vul­ner­a­ble com­mu­ni­ties.

He said the leg­is­la­tion is in­tend­ed to pro­vide “spe­cial mea­sures to up­hold the rule of law, pub­lic or­der, cit­i­zens’ se­cu­ri­ty and pub­lic safe­ty” with­in ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly de­fined ar­eas.

Alexan­der, how­ev­er, sought to em­pha­sise the com­mu­ni­ty-de­vel­op­ment com­po­nent of the leg­is­la­tion, in­sist­ing it should not be viewed sim­ply as an­oth­er law-en­force­ment tool.

“The Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions is not sim­ply about send­ing law en­force­ment in­to a com­mu­ni­ty. It is about se­cu­ri­ty and com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment work­ing to­geth­er,” he said.

He point­ed to ini­tia­tives be­ing un­der­tak­en through his Tu­na­puna con­stituen­cy of­fice as an ex­am­ple of the type of in­ter­ven­tion he en­vis­aged, in­clud­ing en­gag­ing young men, help­ing el­der­ly res­i­dents learn to use com­put­ers and bring­ing med­ical as­sis­tance to peo­ple who are ill.

“That is what the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions is. Where some­one is sick in the area, we bring the doc­tor to them,” Alexan­der said.

The Law Re­form (Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions) Bill, 2026 failed in the Sen­ate in Jan­u­ary af­ter the Gov­ern­ment was un­able to se­cure the re­quired three-fifths spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty in the Sen­ate.

The leg­is­la­tion faced strong crit­i­cism over hu­man rights con­cerns and safe­guards, while the Gov­ern­ment de­clined to ac­cept near­ly 50 pro­posed amend­ments dur­ing the com­mit­tee stage.

The bill sought to em­pow­er the Prime Min­is­ter to de­clare high-crime com­mu­ni­ties Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions, al­low­ing joint po­lice and mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions, in­clud­ing war­rant­less search­es, cur­fews of up to 72 hours and de­ten­tion pow­ers.

It al­so pro­posed the es­tab­lish­ment of a So­cial Com­mit­tee to co­or­di­nate hous­ing, health­care, in­fra­struc­ture and oth­er in­ter­ven­tions in des­ig­nat­ed com­mu­ni­ties.

Alexan­der: 240 PDO de­tainees charged

Alexan­der al­so de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s use of the SoE, point­ing to ar­rests, firearms seizures, Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders (PDOs) and falling crime fig­ures as ev­i­dence that the emer­gency mea­sures worked.

As of day 191 of the SoE, Alexan­der said the pro­tec­tive ser­vices had con­duct­ed 13,108 op­er­a­tions and ar­rest­ed 5,767 peo­ple.

He said 702 PDOs had been ap­proved, of which 573 were ex­e­cut­ed, while law en­force­ment re­cov­ered 318 firearms and 6,414 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion.

Sig­nif­i­cant­ly, Alexan­der said 240 peo­ple de­tained un­der PDOs had sub­se­quent­ly been charged.

“As of day 191, 240 per­sons held un­der pre­ven­tive de­ten­tion or­ders have been charged,” he said, adding that in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to oth­ers were con­tin­u­ing.

Alexan­der al­so point­ed to re­duc­tions in se­ri­ous crime.

A T&T Prison source told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that they had been in­struct­ed to re­lease 563 of the peo­ple de­tained un­der PDOs. That process start­ed on Thurs­day and will con­tin­ue for six days.

Be­tween Jan­u­ary 1 and Sep­tem­ber 10, he said to­tal se­ri­ous crimes de­clined from 8,014 in 2025 to 6,884 this year, a 14.1 per cent re­duc­tion. Com­pared with the 8,492 se­ri­ous crimes record­ed over the cor­re­spond­ing pe­ri­od in 2024, he said the re­duc­tion was 18.9 per cent.

He said mur­ders de­clined from 438 over the pe­ri­od in 2024 to 262 in 2025 and 252 this year, while wound­ings and shoot­ings fell from 542 in 2024 to 402 last year and 313 in 2026.

Alexan­der added that rob­beries al­so de­clined from 1,723 in 2024 to 1,325 last year and 901 this year, a 32 per cent re­duc­tion com­pared with 2025 and 47.7 per cent com­pared with 2024.

‘SoE end­ing be­cause the law says it must’

De­spite those fig­ures, Alexan­der warned that the ex­pi­ra­tion of the SoE should not be in­ter­pret­ed as an in­di­ca­tion that the se­cu­ri­ty threat has dis­ap­peared.

“The state of emer­gency is end­ing be­cause the law says that it must. It is not end­ing be­cause the threat has dis­ap­peared,” Alexan­der told Par­lia­ment.

He said it was al­so not end­ing be­cause the po­lice had fin­ished their work, crim­i­nal gangs had been giv­en a re­prieve or the Gov­ern­ment had lost its re­solve.

“The emer­gency pow­ers will end, the fight against crime will con­tin­ue,” he said.

Alexan­der al­so sent a warn­ing to peo­ple be­ing re­leased from de­ten­tion as the emer­gency pow­ers ex­pire, in­sist­ing that re­lease should not be in­ter­pret­ed as vin­di­ca­tion.

“Re­lease is not ex­on­er­a­tion,” he said.

“The ex­pi­ra­tion of the state of emer­gency de­ten­tion pow­ers does not ease or erase ev­i­dence. It does not close an in­ves­ti­ga­tion and it does not de­stroy in­tel­li­gence.”

He said the ex­pi­ra­tion of the SoE al­so does not close po­lice files or pre­vent charges from be­ing laid lat­er if in­ves­ti­ga­tors ob­tain suf­fi­cient ad­mis­si­ble ev­i­dence.

The TTPS, he said, will con­tin­ue in­ves­ti­gat­ing peo­ple and crim­i­nal net­works of in­ter­est and bring mat­ters be­fore the courts once the ev­i­den­tial thresh­old is met.

Alexan­der said the SoE was on­ly “one weapon” in the State’s ar­se­nal and ar­gued that the Gov­ern­ment’s wider na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty strat­e­gy will con­tin­ue af­ter the emer­gency pow­ers dis­ap­pear.

He said the TTPS will con­tin­ue tar­get­ed op­er­a­tions, law­ful sur­veil­lance, war­rant ex­e­cu­tion, gun-sup­pres­sion ex­er­cis­es, firearm re­cov­ery, high-vis­i­bil­i­ty pa­trols and joint op­er­a­tions with oth­er agen­cies.

The Gov­ern­ment is al­so seek­ing to strength­en po­lice man­pow­er, with 233 re­cruits cur­rent­ly in train­ing and an­oth­er 800 Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice of­fi­cers ex­pect­ed to be ab­sorbed in­to the TTPS.

Alexan­der said 500 Prison Ser­vice re­cruits are al­so un­der­go­ing train­ing, with an­oth­er 300 ex­pect­ed by April next year.

Six joint po­lice and De­fence Force mo­bile units are ex­pect­ed to be­come op­er­a­tional short­ly, while To­ba­go is to re­ceive three units. A fur­ther 24 units are ex­pect­ed to be strate­gi­cal­ly po­si­tioned across the coun­try.

The strat­e­gy al­so in­cludes new TTPS ve­hi­cles, school-ori­ent­ed polic­ing, par­ent­ing pro­grammes and youth in­ter­ven­tion ini­tia­tives.

Alexan­der ar­gued that the Gov­ern­ment has no in­ten­tion of re­duc­ing its se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence be­cause the crime fig­ures are mov­ing down­wards.

“Crime is falling while pres­sure is be­ing ap­plied,” he said.

“We will not make a fool­ish mis­take of re­duc­ing the pres­sure be­cause the strat­e­gy is be­gin­ning to work.”

Ear­li­er, Alexan­der made the Gov­ern­ment’s cen­tral ar­gu­ment even more point­ed­ly.

“Pres­sure works. Sus­tained law en­force­ment works. In­tel­li­gence-led polic­ing works. Dis­rupt­ing gangs works. Tak­ing guns and am­mu­ni­tion off the street works.”

While ac­knowl­edg­ing that no re­spon­si­ble gov­ern­ment could at­tribute every re­duc­tion in crime to a sin­gle mea­sure, Alexan­der said the ev­i­dence showed the coun­try was mov­ing in the right di­rec­tion.

He said the Gov­ern­ment would there­fore in­ten­si­fy rather than aban­don its strat­e­gy af­ter the SoE ends.

“You do not aban­don suc­cess,” Alexan­der said. “You im­prove on it.”

SoE (March 3 to present)— By the Num­bers

Op­er­a­tions con­duct­ed: 13,108

Peo­ple ar­rest­ed: 5,767

PDOs ap­proved: 702

PDOs ex­e­cut­ed: 573

PDO de­tainees charged: 240

Firearms re­cov­ered: 318

Am­mu­ni­tion re­cov­ered: 6,414 rounds

Se­ri­ous crime re­duc­tion vs 2025: 14.1%

Mur­ders in 2026: 252

Rob­bery re­duc­tion vs 2025: 32%