Criminologist says social intervention provisions needed in SOB

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad says while “hard” polic­ing op­er­a­tions are a nec­es­sary part of any crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tive, he hopes that so­cial in­ter­ven­tions and com­mu­ni­ty-lev­el en­gage­ment would still form a crit­i­cal part of the pro­posed Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Dr Seep­er­sad said he read the re­vised ver­sion of the Bill, which suc­ceeds the de­feat­ed Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, not­ing that cer­tain pro­vi­sions were in­clud­ed to en­sure a high­er de­gree of ac­count­abil­i­ty on the part of po­lice.

He said the re­vised Bill, how­ev­er, did not in­clude pro­vi­sions for so­cial in­ter­ven­tion which formed a sig­nif­i­cant part of the ear­li­er strat­e­gy, not­ing that the ab­sence of any restora­tive strate­gies to help strength­en com­mu­ni­ties was a “step back.”