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Justice: it's a demand many bitter and enraged families make and often never get after their loved one is murdered. We have reported on countless murders in our newscast but only a few of those cases result in convictions. Well, a group of scenes of crime investigators hope to increase the conviction rate and deliver on that demand. Today 27 new scenes of crime investigators graduated from a Forensic Crime Scene Investigation Course and a ceremony was held to honour them at the Princess Hotel this morning. We spoke to the CEO in the Ministry of National Security and he told us how this course will enhance the standard of crime investigation in Belize.

Hayden Baldwin - Contract Constructor

"The graduation is the final after a 10 month training period. So they've been through training in all aspects of crime scene processing. The group has been upgraded to international standards. So now they are experts in their fields and that includes the photography, latent prints, impression evidence, biological and trace evidence, report writing, sketching, interpreting the crime scene. The equipment you see behind me is all been supplied by the US embassy right now. With that equipment now, they're capable of taking photographs and processing the scene correctly. There's lot of equipment here, so there training has been very extensive to go through all of that. So now they will have the full capability of processing crime scenes."

George Lovell - CEO, Ministry of National Security

"When we first started out a few years ago, we had lacked the capacity that was needed for us to effectively investigate cases. For us to use those evidence to help in prosecution and for us to have better prosecution rate. It is my hope that with the newly acquired knowledge - our crimes of scene technicians will now have the capacity to go out there and do the type of jobs that would yield to better conviction rates in court. And that is one of the benefits I hope to get from this. It will also in my view, equip them to be able to help to train all those other police officers and those who will come in contact with a crime scene. To depart that knowledge to them and cause us to be able to get together, to secure the scene and gather the evidence that will be needed for us to prosecute cases."

Darlene Gabourel - Crime Scene Investigator

"The training was quite intense. We had to do a lot of hard work, studies, a lot of examinations. Our instructor Mr. Baldwin, at all times, he expected a high standard from us. He had us sweating, studying, burning a lot of brain cells - but we all worked hard and we all made it."

The course ran for 10 months.