Police Commissioner disappointed at failure to get 10 per cent decline in murders last year

BELMOPAN, Belize:

CMC

Police Commissioner Chester Williams has acknowledged that law enforcement has been unable to register a 10 per cent reduction in murders here in 2019, but said “significant progress” had been made in gang-related crimes.

In 2018, Belize had recorded 144 murders and Williams told reporters that at the end of the last 12 months “we are not where we wanted to be… “.

Said the commissioner: “Our desire was to have a 10 per cent reduction in murder but we will not be able to achieve that 10 per cent reduction. Nonetheless we will achieve a reduction.”

He added that he would divulge the final figures soon.

“In terms of other major crimes, we have a significant reduction and so there is a lot to be grateful for and as I said to my commanders… we now need to look at what we did in 2019 and try to see how we can re-strategise in certain areas to ensure that 2020 is a much better year for us.”

William said the police had during 2019, made “significant progress” in gang related crimes and that “we can safely say that gang related crimes are extremely down.

“Our major concern is alcohol still and so we still have to continue to focus on those three areas because the domestic violence style murder and the alcohol related murders are at number one and two. The gang is at number three so we have to see what else we can do working in collaboration with the different licensing board.

“We have tried that and they are still not as forthcoming as we would want them to be. We are hoping that in 2020 we can get them on board. Let me not say all because some of them do work extremely well with the police,” Williams told reporters.