ZOSOS to replace SOE: Govt to follow Jamaica’s crime initiative for hotspots

Kay-Marie Fletch­er

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­[email protected]

As the State of Emer­gency (SoE) comes to an end in the com­ing weeks, the Gov­ern­ment’s next move will tar­get hotspots. At­tor­ney Gen­er­al (AG) John Je­re­mie yes­ter­day re­vealed the Gov­ern­ment’s plan to im­ple­ment Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO), which by law will em­pow­er law en­force­ment when it comes to com­bat­ting crime in hotspot ar­eas. A sim­i­lar le­gal frame­work ex­ists in Ja­maica.

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the head­quar­ters of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) in Ch­agua­nas yes­ter­day, Je­re­mie said the first SoE was de­clared to re­spond to the ex­is­ten­tial threat to the State by dis­rupt­ing the lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion which ex­ist­ed be­tween in­car­cer­at­ed gang lead­ers and their part­ners out­side the prison sys­tem.

It is one of three bills to be brought to the Par­lia­ment when it con­venes to­mor­row.

This time around, he ex­plained, this bill is aimed at tar­get­ing the present risks that ex­ist.

Je­re­mie said, “The leg­is­la­tion which is be­fore the House is in­tend­ed to en­sure that there is a mea­sure of pro­por­tion­al­i­ty be­tween our re­spons­es and the threats which we now face, so that in­stead of a na­tion­al State of Emer­gency, we pro­pose to con­cen­trate on hotspots.”

With­out iden­ti­fy­ing which ar­eas the Gov­ern­ment con­sid­ers “hotspots,” Je­re­mie said there will be ju­di­cial over­sight when it comes to who ex­act­ly can de­clare some­where a zone of op­er­a­tion.

How­ev­er, the pro­posed se­cu­ri­ty law to be de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment will give Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar the pow­er to de­clare high-crime com­mu­ni­ties “Spe­cial Zones.”

De­fend­ing the new pro­posed ZOSO, Je­re­mie added that the na­tion­al SoE pro­vid­ed many ben­e­fits, such as a de­crease in homi­cides and vi­o­lent crimes, and the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to lock in those ad­van­tages go­ing for­ward as well.

De­fend­ing the pro­posed zones of op­er­a­tions, Je­re­mie said the na­tion­al SoE had de­liv­ered sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits, in­clud­ing re­duc­tions in homi­cides and vi­o­lent crime, and that the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to pre­serve those gains go­ing for­ward.

This isn’t the first time Trinidad and To­ba­go has im­ple­ment­ed spe­cial op­er­a­tions for cer­tain ar­eas.

But, ac­cord­ing to the AG, the Gov­ern­ment has tight­ened up the leg­is­la­tion this time around.

The Gov­ern­ment de­clared a state of emer­gency on Ju­ly 18, 2025. Since then, there have been over 160 mur­ders, and over 100 peo­ple have been de­tained un­der the emer­gency act.

Asked what will be­come of these de­tainees with this new bill, the min­is­ter chose not to say.

He said, “There are lo­gis­tics which are be­ing worked out by the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and the po­lice as we speak, and I would not like to speak to that to­day (Wednes­day).”

But one lawyer rep­re­sent­ing a prison of­fi­cer de­tained un­der the SoE said every­one not charged should be re­leased.

The lawyer said, “I don’t see that the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion will af­fect my client un­less he re­sides in an area that is de­clared a hotspot. The SoE will soon come to an end, and I ex­pect him and any oth­er de­tainee not charged to be re­leased. I am con­cerned, how­ev­er, that this pro­posed plan has some po­ten­tial for dis­crim­i­na­tion. There are in­no­cent peo­ple who live in com­mu­ni­ties that will be deemed “hotspot” ar­eas.”

For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith is al­so agree­ing with the AG’s move for a zones of op­er­a­tions, as he be­lieves it will give the au­thor­i­ties the pow­er to in­fil­trate hotspots with­out dis­turb­ing law-abid­ing cit­i­zens. He said it was a rec­om­men­da­tion he made months ago.

Grif­fith said, “I made this rec­om­men­da­tion months ago, sev­er­al months ago, even be­fore the last elec­tion. I made that rec­om­men­da­tion be­cause when you have a na­tion­al State of Emer­gency, it af­fects the econ­o­my, it af­fects busi­ness, it af­fects trade, it af­fects in­vest­ment, it af­fects tourism, and many times per­sons be­come af­fect­ed that have noth­ing to do with the sit­u­a­tion of vi­o­lent crime.

“So what you have is that Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions where you can give ex­cess pow­ers to the law en­force­ment agen­cies with­out hav­ing to put it ... spread it right across the coun­try that can af­fect the coun­try in many dif­fer­ent ways. It is very clin­i­cal.

“So you have to do a lot of da­ta analy­sis, ver­i­fy where the hotspots are, and ver­i­fy if it is that you can now al­low the law en­force­ment agen­cies to have those ex­tra pow­ers to be able to ar­rest per­sons, pos­si­bly ar­rest per­sons with­out hav­ing the prop­er ev­i­dence that may be re­quired to have them in­car­cer­at­ed in­def­i­nite­ly, be­ing able to en­ter prop­er­ty with­out a war­rant.”

Grif­fith added, “All of those things can be done in spe­cif­ic ar­eas, hotspot ar­eas. So I wel­come this. I think it is an ex­cel­lent di­rec­tion that the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is go­ing, and I think this could be the next step to­wards us try­ing to di­min­ish the neg­a­tiv­i­ty that can take place from the State of Emer­gency while still giv­ing the law en­force­ment agen­cies that ex­tra edge.”

Re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Garvin Heer­ah, who al­so agrees with mir­ror­ing Ja­maica by hav­ing zones of op­er­a­tions, said it shouldn’t be a stand­alone so­lu­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to Heer­ah, in­tel­li­gence and so­cial in­ter­ven­tion are al­so need­ed.

He said, “In my pro­fes­sion­al as­sess­ment, yes, it is a vi­able op­tion, but on­ly if it is in­tel­li­gence-led, legal­ly ground­ed, time-bound, and sup­port­ed by so­cial sta­bil­i­sa­tion mea­sures, not used as a blunt-force sub­sti­tute for long-term re­form. Ja­maica’s ZOSO frame­work worked not sim­ply be­cause of re­strict­ed move­ment, but be­cause it com­bined law en­force­ment dom­i­nance, in­tel­li­gence fu­sion, tar­get­ed op­er­a­tions, and par­al­lel so­cial in­ter­ven­tion. The les­son for Trinidad and To­ba­go is clear: ge­og­ra­phy alone does not sup­press crime; con­trol, in­tel­li­gence, and con­ti­nu­ity do. Any ZOSO-style adap­ta­tion here must there­fore be se­lec­tive, da­ta-dri­ven, and an­chored in clear ex­it cri­te­ria to avoid op­er­a­tional fa­tigue and pub­lic re­sent­ment.”

Heer­ah added, “Crime re­duc­tion is not achieved through slo­gans or tem­po­rary crack­downs. It re­quires se­ri­ous­ness of pur­pose, strate­gic dis­ci­pline, and sus­tained in­vest­ment in both sys­tems and peo­ple. Trinidad and To­ba­go must now move from episod­ic re­spons­es to struc­tured, strate­gic crime gov­er­nance, be­cause na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is not an event; it is a con­tin­u­ous oblig­a­tion.”