As the State of Emer­gency (SoE) comes to an end in the com­ing weeks, the Gov­ern­ment’s next move will tar­get hotspots. At­tor­ney Gen­er­al (AG) John Je­re­mie yes­ter­day re­vealed the Gov­ern­ment’s plan to im­ple­ment Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO), which by law will em­pow­er law en­force­ment when it comes to com­bat­ting crime in hotspot ar­eas. A sim­i­lar le­gal frame­work ex­ists in Ja­maica.

Dur­ing a me­dia brief­ing at the head­quar­ters of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) in Ch­agua­nas yes­ter­day, Je­re­mie said the first SoE was de­clared to re­spond to the ex­is­ten­tial threat to the State by dis­rupt­ing the lines of com­mu­ni­ca­tion which ex­ist­ed be­tween in­car­cer­at­ed gang lead­ers and their part­ners out­side the prison sys­tem.

It is one of three bills to be brought to the Par­lia­ment when it con­venes to­mor­row.