How many of us feel like pris­on­ers in our own home? We are bar­ri­cad­ed with­in bur­glar-proof­ing, afraid to step out­side in the night while crim­i­nals roam freely. How many of us have lost some­one we love? How many fam­i­lies have been shat­tered by home in­va­sions, ex­tor­tions and vi­o­lent rob­beries?

For too long, we have been fight­ing a los­ing bat­tle with crim­i­nals who make you ques­tion why you’re work­ing so hard to af­ford nice things when they will rob us.

We have changed our lifestyles: we stopped wear­ing ex­pen­sive jew­ellery, we con­tin­ue to dri­ve the old car, and we make sure we stay far away from “cer­tain ar­eas” be­cause we know we will be tar­get­ed by crim­i­nals. We live in a coun­try where crim­i­nals get away while hon­est, law-abid­ing cit­i­zens pay the price. And the on­ly way to get out of this deep hole is to keep try­ing new mea­sures un­til we get it right. We can­not af­ford to sit and watch time go by while our beloved coun­try de­te­ri­o­rates.

This is why I wel­comed the procla­ma­tion of the Home In­va­sion (Self-De­fence and De­fence of Prop­er­ty) Act. It is on­ly fair that home­own­ers get a fair op­por­tu­ni­ty to “stand their ground” and de­fend their homes and fam­i­lies.

Home is sup­posed to be sa­cred, the one place where you should feel safe. The idea that a law-abid­ing per­son can have clear­er le­gal pro­tec­tion to de­fend life and prop­er­ty in­side their home mat­ters. It is not that we like vi­o­lence. It is more that we are tired of feel­ing help­less. It’s about time that we start to change the nar­ra­tive and turn the ta­bles on the crim­i­nals.

It is against this same back­drop of feel­ing un­safe and fed up of liv­ing at the mer­cy of crim­i­nals, that I am will­ing to give the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) a chance. The Gov­ern­ment’s po­si­tion is that once the State of Emer­gency ends, T&T needs a tool that is more tar­get­ed than na­tion­wide emer­gency mea­sures.

The ZOSO ap­proach, as de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment, would al­low the Prime Min­is­ter (on the ad­vice of se­cu­ri­ty lead­er­ship) to de­clare ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly de­fined zones where there are rea­son­able grounds to be­lieve ram­pant crim­i­nal­i­ty, gang vi­o­lence, or threats to pub­lic or­der are wide­spread. The high crime sta­tis­tics over the past years is enough to jus­ti­fy why cit­i­zens are des­per­ate for a so­lu­tion and change.

Even when the sta­tis­tics show a de­cline, it tells us some­thing. Last year, the TTPS notes that mur­ders fell to 369, a sig­nif­i­cant de­cline from 626 in 2024 and the most sig­nif­i­cant change in the past ten years.

The TTPS al­so re­port­ed de­clines in se­ri­ous and vi­o­lent crimes, and an im­proved de­tec­tion rate for mur­ders, from 15 per cent to 20 per cent. Po­lice re­port­ed seiz­ing 673 il­le­gal firearms and over three tonnes of mar­i­jua­na. This is ev­i­dence of what can hap­pen when we have sus­tained, co­or­di­nat­ed and ef­fec­tive crime-fight­ing mea­sures. It shows that we can re­duce crime when we make it a na­tion­al pri­or­i­ty.

That said, the num­bers de­creased while T&T was un­der a SoE, but what hap­pens when the cur­rent SoE ends at the end of the month?

A de­crease in crime in one year should not make us com­pla­cent. We have to con­tin­ue mak­ing it a na­tion­al pri­or­i­ty. Thus, if the ZOSO ap­proach can ad­dress the “hotspots” it is worth a try.

At the same time, we need to ask the hard ques­tions: which ar­eas are his­tor­i­cal­ly crim­i­nal hotspots? More im­por­tant­ly, why are these ar­eas breed­ing grounds for crim­i­nals and what can be done, long term, to im­pact pos­i­tive changes in these ar­eas? We have a his­to­ry of pump­ing mon­ey in­to spe­cif­ic ar­eas but not see­ing any ma­jor signs of im­prove­ment, so now we need to dig deep­er and put more ef­fort in­to ad­dress­ing so­ci­etal is­sues.

Prob­a­bly the sad­dest thing about the crime prob­lem in T&T is that his­tor­i­cal­ly, our lead­ers can­not seem to come to­geth­er to de­vel­op a con­crete, con­sol­i­dat­ed ap­proach to fight­ing crime. There is al­ways a fight down—one gov­ern­ment does some­thing, the op­po­si­tion op­pos­es it with­out any re­al at­tempt to put aside dif­fer­ences and find so­lu­tions—and the dis­tress con­tin­ues.

In my opin­ion, pol­i­tics is the biggest de­ter­rent to erad­i­cat­ing crime. T&T’s pol­i­tics is close­ly aligned to race and eth­nic­i­ty, and as long as politi­cians use this to gain po­lit­i­cal favours and fol­low­ers, then nor­mal, law-abid­ing cit­i­zens will con­tin­ue to be at the mer­cy of crim­i­nals.

Look at how the idea of es­tab­lish­ing Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions has turned in­to one big “we against them” mess. Ac­knowl­edg­ing the races and ge­o­graph­ic ar­eas where crime is preva­lent can­not con­tin­ue to be seen as a racial thing. It has to be seen as a na­tion­al prob­lem.

As long as crime con­tin­ues to be seen through racist lens, then T&T will need to find more fu­ner­al homes, ceme­ter­ies and cre­ma­tion sites.