ZOSO should be positioned as a force for economic development – VPA

THE VIOLENCE Prevention Alliance (VPA) is recommending that the zones of special operations (ZOSOs) be positioned as a force for economic development.

The VPA made the recommendation recently while making a submission to the Joint Select Committee of Parliament in review of the Law Reform (Zones of Special Operations) Act.

“We want to emphasise that sustainable development should be the priority of the ZOSO and that it is backed by the security interventions, and the benefit of this is that when communities know that this effort is one to develop the community, you are going to have greater citizen activism,” said Kaodi McGaw, a representative of the VPA and one of three persons who presented on behalf of the Alliance.

McGaw said this would lead to more sustainable interventions.

“When I say sustainable interventions, I mean they are interventions that are co-owned and developed by the communities themselves,” she said. McGaw noted that one way of intervening in a community in crisis is to apply a community-transformation model, which involves interrupting the community violence through engagement and mediation, therapeutic camps, counselling, and peace treaties.

“The next step has to be healing and reconciliation, and this involves persons in the violence. Under this, we look at improving literacy to improve cognitive abilities; we look at small income earning projects to divert persons from unlawful methods. We encourage sports and arts and the renovation of green spaces so that those green spaces can be reoccupied by the community,” she said.

Another recommendation put forward by the VPA was that there should be some measuring and standards for success. This McGaw said included greater details in defining the stages of the ZOSO framework, establishing criteria in exiting ZOSO communities, and transparent and easily understood measures of success.

She noted that the VPA would like to see more robustness of the act, where specific tools or methods would be utilised to suppress and interrupt and prevent violence.

In the declaration of zones, she stated that there should be greater consideration of the security threat to include impact on neighbouring communities.

The VPA is further recommending that the Planning Institute of Jamaica be given the licence to guide the deployment process, that a situational analysis be done, and that a team with the requisite skills be put in place to fulfill this role.

“There is a need for identification of specific justices of the peace to be trained and sensitised about their roles and the support they should provide. A roster of these JPs to be on call should be placed at the relevant holding and detention centres,” she pointed out.

Also representing the VPA in Parliament were Saffrey Brown, social and local development practitioner and consultant with the VPA, and Tarik Weeks, research fellow at the Institute of Criminal Justice and Security, The University of the West Indies.