Even be­fore Par­lia­ment con­venes to de­bate the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­pos­al to es­tab­lish Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) as a crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy, a crim­i­nol­o­gist is warn­ing the ap­proach will fail to ad­dress the roots of vi­o­lent crime.

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dau­rius Figueira was re­spond­ing to At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie’s an­nounce­ment that the Gov­ern­ment will ta­ble the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion, ti­tled The Law Re­form (Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions) (Spe­cial Se­cu­ri­ty and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Mea­sures) Bill, 2026, when Par­lia­ment meets to­day for the first time this year fol­low­ing the Christ­mas break.

The bill is in­tend­ed to re­place the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency, which is set to ex­pire lat­er this month. If passed, it would grant the Prime Min­is­ter the au­thor­i­ty to des­ig­nate high-crime com­mu­ni­ties as “Spe­cial Zones,” al­low­ing for search­es with­out a war­rant and cur­fews of up to 72 hours.