Jamaica: Special security zones are decreasing murders – but at what cost?
Early on the morning of Sept. 23, police barged into Ann Marie Robinson’s cramped apartment, looking for her son. With their badge numbers covered, they confronted her. When her son entered the room, the situation escalated.
“They hold me by the neck, push me down on the ground,” Ms. Robinson recalls, one knee still swollen months later. Her son was detained for nearly 24 hours without being given a reason. “I don’t trust the police, I don’t have no confidence in them,” she says.
Robinson lives in one of several communities that the government placed under a state of emergency, following the passage of the country’s Zone of Special Operation (ZOSO) legislation in July 2017. The ZOSO legislation suspends some constitutional rights,
‘Have we saved lives?’‘Prisoners in their own home’
