Minimum six years for ZOSO turnaround, says Sweeney - Crime dips in August Town but views mixed over social work ‘build phase’

August Town residents who were on edge from sporadic gun violence for the first half of 2020 say a zone of special operations (ZOSO) implemented last July has offered an oasis of peace in a community that has been a powder keg of violence for decades. The unsolved killing of Susan Bogle, a disabled woman, sparked a firestorm of national outrage and drew state action.

But concerns linger that the Holness administration’s promised buildout of supporting infrastructure has not come fast enough and that militant gunmen have not been co-opted in the reform programme.

The intervention – a mix of paramilitary might and social work – took effect in August Town on July 8, 2020, amid spiralling gang violence in the St Andrew Central Police Division crime hotspot. The community, which spans 4.7 square kilometres, had up to seven murders and 14 shootings between January and July last year.

Residents said that while their movements have been restricted, the ZOSO has allowed them to feel safer.

“I wouldn’t mind them stay here. I go in my bed at nights and I can sleep. See mi sit down out here now quite comfortable,” said a 74-year-old woman, seen seated among a group of other women at the intersection of July and August Town roads.

“One time gone when the ZOSO wasn’t here, you hear ‘Bow!’ up the road, ‘Bow!’ down the road, and you have to duck and gone,” she added.

Just across the road from her, a vendor told The Gleaner that people used to be fearful of stopping to patronise his business when gunmen turned streets into bullet-riddled battlefields.

“You know how we happy? I can sell a little bit more,” he said, as soldiers patrolled the community.

But while the crime situation has definitely improved, the vendor, who refused to give his name, believes more can still be done to improve the community.

“Happy to see the soldier them and the police them, but I don’t see social intervention. I see HEART Trust come around the school recently, but inna this thing that them saying, ‘build phase’ and all of that, I don’t see that,” he lamented.

The much-touted build phase of ZOSOs is aimed at reversing social and cultural factors that give rise to crime and violence. But besides introducing social programmes, the initiative is geared towards improving schools; fixing schools, street lights, and roads; as well as installation of legal water and power supply.

Managing director of the Jamaica Social Investment Fund (JSIF), Omar Sweeney, who also serves as deputy chairman of the ZOSO social intervention committee, said that the reforms being implemented in those communities will not trigger a revolution, or evolution, in the short term.

“Our experience doing this kind of work is that it takes a minimum of six years to make any meaningful transformation in communities that would have exhibited the characteristics of a ZOSO, and it can be beyond that,” he said.

JSIF is the lead agency for the coordination and implementation of the intervention programme. The organisation is currently working in 24 communities that bear similar characteristics to those designated as ZOSOs. Sweeney said that the agency has spent between $200 million and $600 million to develop the physical infrastructure and introduce social services in more than 20 communities over the last six years.

“These things take longer than people really anticipate. What we have to remember also is that many of these communities didn’t get to where they are overnight. These things have happened over decades, and so we certainly can’t think that we are going to solve the problem in a year or two,” Sweeney told The Gleaner at a handover of equipment worth $2.2 million to small business operators in Treadlight, Clarendon, on Friday.

Public relations officer of the Hermitage Citizens’ Association, Maurice Mason, said he has seen marked change in August Town since the ZOSO implementation.

“The social intervention is on the increase. JSIF has been doing a lot of intervention, and there is an enterprise grant that they are now doing,” he said, citing the donation of $3 million worth of equipment to small businesses.

“They are looking at utilising HEART/NTA as one of the skills-training mechanism that they can use to remove the obstacle of travel and the cost to attain an education, because you know travel cost is one of the biggest deterrents to accessing an education,” said Mason.

Several derelict buildings in the community are being given a facelift, Mason said, adding that JSIF is spearheading a major project at Hermitage Park. Meanwhile, the Mona Social Services, an outreach initiative started by the nearby University of the West Indies, continue to work with citizens to help improve August Town.

Residents are also trying to do their part in maintaining the peace in August Town, which, in 2016, grabbed national attention for the outlier of having zero murders. Sonia Barnett-Lambert said there are regular football and netball competitions in African Gardens, where she lives, and young men are encouraged to take part in regular prayer meetings.

“We encourage them to get a little work, but you know them will ‘fraid fi want come out of the area because up the road always have them trouble,” she said.

Barnett-Lambert said that African Gardens has won four trophies from The UWI for being the best community in August Town. The 64-year-old matriarch said that the neighbourhood has, for the most part, been insulated from the violence because the community helps to raise each other’s children and keeps an eye on the young men.

“Me especially, if I see them a walk with them pants down, I say, ‘Hey, I gonna get piece of rope and rope up that pants there,’ so them take it for joke and will say, ‘All right, Mama,’ and draw it up.

“Them don’t disrespect me, and if they see mi a strain with something, them will say, ‘Mama, let me help you,’” she said.

Bruce Letman, who lives in Jungle 12, a known hotspot in August Town, said he is eager to restart a social programme for youths he was forced to shelve because of violence.

“The ZOSO let it can go back active,” he said of the initiative involving about 29 youths from mostly single-parent households.

Venesha Phillips, councillor of the Papine division where August Town is located, believes the ZOSO has been a positive tool, but is calling for more support to make it a complete success.

“The presence has reduced significantly the clashes. Although, from time to time, explosions are heard at different points in the community,” she said that “the face-off between gangs has, in fact, not happened”.

Phillips said that social intervention is being organised, but believes that those who are actively involved in gangs rarely ever participate and may resurface if, and when, the programme slows or ends.

St Andrew Eastern Member of Parliament Fayval Williams did not respond to requests for comment.

nadine.wilson@gleanerjm.com