MANDEVILLE, Manchester – Arguing that communities outside of the anti-crime Zones of Special Operations are being left exposed to criminals because police and material resources are being diverted to special zones, General Secretary of the opposition People’s National Party (PNP) Julian Robinson says the government needs to urgently rethink the strategy.

“The entire (ZOSO) needs to be reviewed to make a determination as to deployment of resources because it (ZOSO) is not working,” Robinson told journalists following a robust meeting of the PNP’s National Executive Council (NEC), at the Manchester High School on Sunday. PNP president Peter Phillips was among those addressing the conference and responding to questions from the floor.

“The nature of the ZOSO means that you are pulling police resources from other areas into one specific geographic area,” said Robinson.

He cited St James where Mount Salem was declared a special zone in September as a prime example.

“What we are seeing in St James is that the problem (violent crime) is in the entire parish (but) you are diverting the resources into Mount Salem and there are other areas that are under resourced. So, what needs to happen is a review of ZOSO and a deployment into all the crime areas,” Robinson said.

Mount Salem and Denham Town are the areas declared special zones so far under the Law Reform (Zones of Special Operations) Special Security and Community Development Measures) Act which was passed in Parliament earlier this year.

The law gives the Prime Minister power – in consultation with the National Security Council – to declare an area a Zone of Special Operations in order to tackle increased crime and volatility in a community.  The prime minister is empowered to act after the police commissioner and the chief of Defence Staff make a request for such a declaration in writing.

Arguing that to begin with, Mount Salem was not the biggest problem area in terms of crime in St James, Robinson said that the government’s strategy had meant that even more vulnerable communities had been left without adequate police cover.  

According to Robinson “when you pool (police and resources) like in Mount Salem the rest of Montego Bay is left without adequate resources”.  Yet he argued, Montego Bay and the wider St James – with more than 300 murders so far this year – “had it been ranked as a country would be number one in the world for crime”.   

Further, he said, “St James is hemorrhaging but other parishes are hemorrhaging too and the government needs to come up with a plan that addresses these problems.”

Crime was Jamaica’s number one problem and people “don’t feel safe”, Robinson said.