Chester Sam­bra­no

Lead Ed­i­tor–News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith and re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Dr Garvin Heer­ah have de­scribed Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) as a vi­able and ef­fec­tive op­tion once the State of Emer­gency (SoE) ends, warn­ing that crime could surge if emer­gency pow­ers are lift­ed with­out prop­er con­tin­gency plan­ning.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Grif­fith said he had long ar­gued against us­ing an SoE as a pri­ma­ry crime-fight­ing tool and point­ed to Ja­maica’s ex­pe­ri­ence with ZOSO as a more tar­get­ed al­ter­na­tive.

He ex­plained that the ap­proach al­lows law en­force­ment to fo­cus on legal­ly au­tho­rised op­er­a­tions with­in hotspots, rather than ap­ply­ing sweep­ing emer­gency mea­sures across the coun­try.

Grif­fith de­scribed ZOSO as “a vir­tu­al­ly di­min­ished ver­sion of a state of emer­gency” that could still as­sist po­lice ef­forts.

He said the Gov­ern­ment still had sev­er­al op­tions when the cur­rent SoE ends, in­clud­ing re­in­stat­ing it af­ter a short break.

“The Gov­ern­ment can very well, at the end of the SoE, have a two-month break, and then go back again to the pres­i­dent, and we could have an SoE for the next four years. That is a pos­si­bil­i­ty.”

Grif­fith raised con­cerns about the long-term im­pact of ex­tend­ed emer­gency pow­ers, par­tic­u­lar­ly the in­def­i­nite in­car­cer­a­tion of sus­pects.

“When you have that SoE, and peo­ple are in­car­cer­at­ed in­def­i­nite­ly, it al­ways be­comes that sit­u­a­tion of a spike in crime.”

Grif­fith con­trast­ed that pe­ri­od with the cur­rent SoE, which has al­lowed for the pro­longed de­ten­tion of sus­pect­ed crim­i­nals.

He warned that re­leas­ing those in­di­vid­u­als with­out safe­guards could trig­ger a vi­o­lent back­lash.

“If they are re­leased, then you know what is go­ing to hap­pen. There’s go­ing to be a mas­sive re­tal­i­a­tion.”

Grif­fith said the Gov­ern­ment should al­ready be prepar­ing for that pos­si­bil­i­ty or tran­si­tion­ing to­wards ZOSO.

“The Gov­ern­ment, hope­ful­ly, should have start­ed putting con­tin­gency plans in place in an­tic­i­pa­tion of that.”

He warned that with­out prepa­ra­tion, the coun­try risks re­newed vi­o­lence.

Sup­port­ing Grif­fith’s po­si­tion, Dr Garvin Heer­ah, for­mer head of the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre and strate­gic ad­vis­er to the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, said a Zone of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO), as im­ple­ment­ed in Ja­maica, or zon­al cur­fews, could be adapt­ed to Trinidad and To­ba­go – but on­ly un­der strict con­di­tions.

“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,” Heer­ah said.

He stressed that Ja­maica’s frame­work worked not sim­ply through re­strict­ed move­ment but by com­bin­ing law en­force­ment dom­i­nance, in­tel­li­gence fu­sion, tar­get­ed op­er­a­tions and so­cial in­ter­ven­tions.

“The les­son for Trinidad and To­ba­go is clear: ge­og­ra­phy alone does not sup­press crime; con­trol, in­tel­li­gence and con­ti­nu­ity do.”

Heer­ah rec­om­mend­ed that any ZOSO-style adap­ta­tion in­clude in­tel­li­gence-led polic­ing, high-vis­i­bil­i­ty pa­trols, de­ploy­able com­mand cen­tres, tar­get­ed war­rant op­er­a­tions, en­vi­ron­men­tal man­age­ment and strength­ened bor­der and port con­trol. He al­so em­pha­sised the wel­fare of law en­force­ment per­son­nel, call­ing for pre­dictable rest, psy­cho­log­i­cal care, ad­e­quate equip­ment and clear po­lit­i­cal back­ing.

“Op­er­a­tional suc­cess re­quires pre­dictable rest and ro­ta­tion cy­cles, psy­cho­log­i­cal and well­ness sup­port, ad­e­quate equip­ment and lo­gis­tics, clear lead­er­ship in­tent and po­lit­i­cal back­ing, recog­ni­tion, re­spect and in­sti­tu­tion­al care. Of­fi­cer wel­fare is not a soft is­sue; it is a force mul­ti­pli­er,” Heer­ah said.

He con­clud­ed that a ZOSO frame­work could form part of a lay­ered, in­tel­li­gence-led, hu­man-cen­tred na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty strat­e­gy.

“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.”