Residents want lasting ZOSO
Published:Monday | January 31, 2022 | 12:08 AMSharlene Hendricks/Staff Reporter
Gridlocked by a zone of special operations (ZOSO) since 2017, residents of the violence-torn west Kingston community of Denham Town are convinced that although the presence of the joint security forces has brought some relief, their loose hold on gangs has left the community still plagued by gun violence more than four years later.
The sentiment comes amid growing concerns among residents that with the declaration of ZOSOs in two additional communities this year, government resources and perennial extensions are bound to run out with no clear resolution to gang conflict in sight.
“As residents, we know at the end of the day that the funding and resources will become no more, worse with the zones that have been added. Some persons have started to raise concerns that like how the new ZOSOs come, the security forces are going to leave,” president of the Denham Town Community Development Committee (CDC), Dellon Gayle, said in a Gleaner interview last week.
Those questions surround the imposition of ZOSOs in Parade Gardens, central Kingston, and south Savanna-la-Mar in Westmoreland.
The CDC president insisted that although the effectiveness of the security measures has been called into question, residents are counting on the measures remaining in effect amid lingering tension from sporadic shootings and murders.
“I must say it is way better than when it started in 2017, but it’s still not a walk in paradise. We are still having the shootings and still some more gains to be made,” Gayle concluded.
Police data show that up to December last year, the West Kingston Police Division had seen a 16 per cent increase in murders and a near five per cent rise in shootings compared to 2020.
Murders and shootings across the division stood at 107 and 111, respectively, last year.
However, joint commanding officer for the Denham Town ZOSO, Superintendent Michael Phipps, said there was a reduction of murders and shootings within the ZOSO core perimeter.
Murders in the Denham Town ZOSO fell by 45 per cent from 24 in 2020 to 13 in 2021. Shootings also declined by 23 per cent – from 39 to 30 year-on-year.
“We also had more firearm seizures in 2021 than what we had in 2020 when we had 21. Last year, we had 26 gun seizures,” Phipps told The Gleaner on Friday.
To date, the police have recovered a total of 44 firearms since the implementation of the ZOSO in October 2017. So far this year, six murders have been recorded in the community – 4.5 per cent of the 132 people slain as at January 29.
There were 129 murders nationwide over the corresponding period in 2021.
Jermaine Hyatt, councillor of the Denham Town division, has, however, highlighted what he considers weak points in the crime-fighting efforts in the ZOSO, referencing overmilitarisation and a lack of coordination between police and soldiers.
“The police are in the community consistently because the Denham Town Police Station has been there for decades, and they have a relationship with the residents. But the soldiers at times operate contrary to how the police operate and it doesn’t come off as a joint operation.
“The ZOSO cannot be so militarised because when you create the impression that it’s a military zone, then it goes contrary to what you want to accomplish with the capacity building and changing of the culture and thinking. Because after you come in hard, which was the clear phase of the ZOSO, you have to tone down in the build phase in order to build relationships,” Hyatt argued.
Nonetheless, the councillor believes that the measures have had a positive impact on keeping gangsters at bay but fears a swift relapse if the ZOSO were to be decommissioned any time soon.
Hyatt recommended that there be a review of the ZOSO to ascertain its effectiveness and to revise strategies to curtail the persistent gang violence.
“I think Denham Town ZOSO is the only ZOSO where we have still this high level of shootings and murders within the zone. Even though it is significantly less than what existed before, it is still at a significant level compared to the other ZOSOs, where even after four years, we’re still not able to pull the ZOSO,” he said.
Meanwhile, managing director of the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF), Omar Sweeney, believes that significant gains have been made during the build phase of the ZOSO, which aims to reverse the social and cultural factors that give rise to crime and violence.
As the primary stakeholder managing the development component of the ZOSO, the JSIF has implemented several infrastructural and social programmes that have impacted the near 8,000 residents in Denham Town.
To date, approximately 110 households have benefitted from the agency’s zinc fence removal programme and more than 1,000 have been engaged in life-skills training and other social interventions.
Sweeney sought to allay the fears of residents that the Denham Town ZOSO, the largest in density, might be discontinued in the near future.
“We have no intention of closing, and certainly, we don’t have the policy of closing down a ZOSO before we are totally satisfied that the community has been improved,” Sweeney said.