7 News Belize

PM Lays Out Crime Plan; Proposes Controversial Measures
posted (April 4, 2011)
As we showed you in our first segment, this weekend in the city was witness to a panorama of violent crime - and it sent the government and security apparatus scrambling into a round of emergency meetings on Sunday. Coming out of those meetings is a new deployment strategy that will see more personnel, police and BDF on the ground in the city.

The Prime Minister held a press conference at the raccoon Street police station this afternoon flanked by the head of every single security and law enforcement head to say they are treating this latest spate of gang crime as a full blown crisis:…

Hon. Doug Singh, Minister of Police
"January and February showed an average of 3 per month murders in the city and I am speaking specifically of Belize City. the month of March however there was an extreme spike, it was a total of 12 murders alone in the month of March and we are now only now a few days into April and we've had 4 murders just over the weekend. The pattern showed that as of March 10th there has been an increase or a sustain pattern of murder in particular gang violence and gang related murders in the city. An average of about 3 per weekend which has brought us up to that number of 12 for the entire month."

Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"We really are beginning to find out or are entering into a new phase in the battle to regain control certainly of Belize City."

Hon. Doug Singh, Minister of Police "There was a coordinated meeting yesterday and in that meeting a number of reactions have been plan. This is to help to keep the citizens of Belize safer. Those include certainly additional policing and specifically we have had a commitment from the BDF to deploy an additional company - 30 additional officers to work in the sustain operation to boost the police and BDF operations in the city and in specific crime ridden areas. The Belmopan police staff will continue to be deploy in Belize City for the remainder of the week and ongoing which will see a total of 20 additional personnel to conduct foot patrols. In other words the exercise that we had last week will continue, it will be sustain because we have noted that the additional man power on the street had led to some level of success in the apprehension of these individuals."

"Eastern Division will continue to conduct extra patrols which will see a total of 20 additional personnel's also doing foot patrols. If necessary we will increase those patrol periods from the normal 8 hour patrol to 12 hour patrol so that we can have more officers on the ground. We will conduct more shut down operations and that specifically the vehicle check points. Certainly we want to this countrywide because the problem isn't just restricted to Belize City but we are going to focus this directly in certain zones in Belize City to restrict the movements and monitor the movements of certain criminals who may come out of their neighborhoods in order to commit these criminal activities."

And more than just putting boots on the ground - the Prime Minister says he is ready to impose some very serious laws which will no doubt be criticized as draconian.

First among them is the roundly condemned preventative detention. We say roundly condemned because when it was first proposed in April of 2008 - there was vocal opposition. The law would empower the courts to order the detention of persons suspected of being involved in gang activity, or in the commission of murder, but upon whom no charge has been laid.

Now that's against the entire presumption of innocence until guilt is proven and against so much more in the lawbooks. Which is why it was scrapped last time. But this time, the PM said he is ready to take it to its logical conclusion, no matter the political cost - in fact he's prepared to even go further:..

Hon. Dean Barrow, Prime Minister
"I will go to Cabinet tomorrow and I will ask that we re-introduce the provisions to change the constitution to bring into force preventative detention laws. Again I am very sorry on the last occasion, there was an outcry, we are at a point now where if all people of good sense among us don't realize that the situation is so extreme as to demand a measure like that then I am sorry. We will simply, once Cabinet gives me the approval, we will simply have to proceed in the face of whatever opposition there is. We are going to look at how we can actually preserve the anonymity of such a person. In other words we will have to disclose the statement that's been made but we are going to look at how we can fix the law so that we don't have to disclose the name of the person. It will have to be all sorts of safeguards built around this to ensure that there is no violation or abuse but we have to look at that. I am at a point - I've said that in terms of the preventative detention, I am determine to go forward with that. I need to be certain that my Cabinet is of the same mind. Now I am going out on a limb - I for one am certainly prepared to look at removing trial by jury in the case of charges for murder. That is, as of now I am flying solo on that one but I am telling you that I will certainly ensure that that debate at least takes place although I can't go as far as to say that as with the preventative detention provisions I am confident that we will at least take those to the national assembly."

"Really we seem to be confronting a degree of nihilism on the part of these young men that is obliging us to go where we haven't thought of going before."

No date yet for when those proposals will be tabled - and there's no telling yet if the second one, for trials without juries will even be tabled….

Home | Archives | Downloads/Podcasts | Advertise | Contact Us

7 News Belize