This morning's press conference by the Research Team of the Male Social Participation and Violence in Urban Belize Study presented its findings to a group made up of mostly members of the press, civil societies, and the Police. Dr. Herbert Gayle and his team's findings will no doubt come under scrutiny and become plenty of fodder for those who will likely say, "you aint telling me nothing new".
Jim McFadzean Reporting
While most of Dr. Gayles findings coming out of the 1 year research will come as no surprise to most Belizeans; some statements made on where the problems of this ailing society has its origin is revealing.
Dr. Herbert Gayle, Anthropologist
"Belize has been developing accidentally. That is where the problem is."
Gayle was frank and didn't when he spoke about want to lack thereof good governance.
Dr. Herbert Gayle
"The governance needs to begin to have all entities because this cannot continue."
Two few resources and two little attention dedicated to the young people of this society equals trouble.
Dr. Herbert Gayle
"70% of your people are under the age of 35. You must have a ministry that represents 70% of your people."
Gayle says there is an undeclared war between the police and the youth of this country. And furthermore his research found no social distance between te police and the criminals.
Dr. Herbert Gayle
"Young men told me when Operation Jaguar started they said 'Dads let me tell you straight up, long time we are begging then to carry a full war' because we ready. If you have a bad police force; the entire government is bad because it's the face of the state. It's the part of the state that young men see every single day. They don't see the government, they see a police officer. When I spoke to police officers and I said to them 'your hustle is done' straight up, because this is research and everybody say [nodding]. It's logical that you must hustle."
Aside from some striking indictments made of the Belize Police Force Gayle made the observation that there is a wide gap between the poorly trained police and the judiciary.
Dr. Herbert Gayle
"No conviction at this time. Why no conviction at this time? Because the judiciary is extremely learnt, they are at this point yes working with a police department that really is struggling. The gap between these 2 groups is just absolutely too much of a gulf and a chasm for them to even work together."
And then Dr. Gayle made this one final interesting revelation.
Dr. Herbert Gayle
"The other crisis we saw was enormous amount of plans all over Belize. Every time I pick up a book that says plan, absolutely fabulous, but then there is a disconnect between these plans and this thing call implementation. we found a lot of stuff, I went online and look, they are well written and I know that are sponsor by lovely people, but then there is a disconnect."
Reporting for 7 News I am Jim McFadzean.
Dr. Herbert Gayle, an anthropologist of social violence, was brought in to assess the situation and update upper level stake holders.
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