By Alicia Chamely
LEGISLATION to introduce Special Zones of Interest will be brought to Parliament on Friday, as the government seeks to maintain the successful reduction in gang related crimes and homicides resulting from the current State of Emergency (SoE).
Speaking at a press conference on Wednesday at the United National Congress’s headquarters in Chaguanas, Attorney General John Jeremie announced legislation will be brought to the Lower House to shift from a nation-wide State of Emergency to Special Zones of Interest.
Jeremie did not go into details of legislation or name any areas earmarked as Special Zones of Interest, stating he could not do so before it was laid before the House on Friday’s sitting of Parliament.
Discussing the reasoning behind declaring Special Zones of Interest, he said, “The legislation which is before the House is intended to ensure that there is a measure of proportionality between our responses and the threats which we now face, so that instead of a national state of emergency, we propose to concentrate on hot spots.”
Jeremie said the ongoing SoE, which was called in July 2025, was done so as credible threats of harm were made to members of protective services and the judicial system.
He said a major outcome of the SoE was the reduction of gang violence and organized crime, which was what the new legislation aimed to preserve.
Jeremie said, “What we discovered was that there were tangential benefits to disrupting the lines of communication that existed between gang leaders who were incarcerated and their soldiers who were outside of the prison system.”
“We intend to lock in those advantages which have yielded tremendous results in terms of the drop in homicides, the drop in woundings and the drop in violent crime generally. And the first attempt to do that would be with respect to the zone’s legislation,” he said.
Jeremie said the legislation would come with various procedures and parameters to determine what constitutes a Zone of Special interest and how long the designation can last.
He said, “There is legislative precedent for what we propose to do. There are checks and controls. There will be judicial oversight, there will be some time constraint in respect of how long a designation of a particular zone of operation. How long that designation can last, and there will be procedures set in the bill to govern who exactly can declare somewhere a zone of operation.”
Supporting Jeremie’s announcement, Minister of Land and Legal Affairs Saddam Hosein, who said, “Ladies and gentlemen, the issue before us today is that we are taking the decisive measures to stop the lawlessness, to put the criminals behind bars, to pass laws that are proportional to pass laws that will help the people of Trinidad and Tobago in ensuring that we keep our republic safe from the criminals.”
Hosein stated since the implementation of the SoE the country had seen a drastic drop in gang related homicides.
Detailing statistics provided by the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS), Hosein stated, “In the year 2020, there were 130 gang related murders. In the year 2021 there were 189 gang related murders. Keep going up in the year 2022 ,244 gang related murders. 2023, 261 gang related murders. 2024, 273 gang related murders. 2025 with a new UNC government, it went down to 108 gang related murders.”
Hosein further stated, the total murders in 2025 under the UNC had dropped from 626 murders in 2024 to 369.
Praise the success of the SoE in the seizure of firearms and ammunition, which he added were “weapons of choice of criminals,” Hosein said, “July 2025, to present, we have discovered 292 firearms of various assortment, 71 revolvers, 100 and fifth, 144 pistols, 45 shotguns, 29 rifles and three air rifles. And the number of ammunition that was found and seized would have been 4341rounds of ammunition.”
He said, “So the steps, the policies, the laws that we have implemented so far are taking shape. We are seeing the benefits from the policy decisions that we have taken as a government, gang related murders are significantly on the decrease, and the Attorney General indicated very early on.”
“It’s the law reform zones of special operations, special security and community development measures, Bill 2026, so this is a copy of the bill in hand. And this bill is a very progressive piece of legislation. There’s a piece of legislation that will assist us in fighting the criminals,” he added holding up the cover page of the Bill.
