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ACP Chester Williams - OC, Eastern Division South
"This afternoon, we met. We had different agencies, representatives from the Department of Human Services, from Community Rehab, from the Truancy Unit, Restore Belize, CYDP, and the police. We met this morning as a group in discussing how we are going to apply this initiative that we're trying to do now. And, what we'll be doing after this is to revise a protocol that will be used whenever a child is removed off the street at night time. Subsequent to that, we'll be having another general meeting among ourselves in the larger body, to review the protocol and see if there is anything that needs to be added or adjusted in the protocol. But, I want to make it clear that the detention is not detention in the sense of how you detain a criminal, okay. These young people, when they're removed from the street, they will be placed in a separate place. We're not going to have them in the cell block, so as to allow them to be contaminated by those seasoned criminals. There is a special room where we'll house them at the Raccoon Street Police Station, until the morning time when we can get their parents and Social Services. And, I want to make it emphatically clear that we are not targetting the children. We are targeting the parents."

Jules Vasquez
"Might it be that you are fast-tracking what you've long been aware, and long told us is a problem, and is a violation of the law, but you're fast tracking it without everything in place structurally to absorb these children?"

ACP Chester Williams
"Yes, Jules, we have to make a start, and yes, I would have liked that we would have already had everything that we need in place before we start this, but like what people will say, 'While you wait for the grass to grow, the horse is starving.' The same principle applies here. If we wait for things to be put in place, the children are dying out. Now, some may want to say that we're violating the rights of these children. There are no rights being violated because, first and foremost, a child under the age of 18 does not have the right to be on the street late at night."

Jules Vasquez
"The fact is, sir, a lot of these children, boys in particular, have no space in the home. Perhaps, the mother has a new male friend, and he doesn't like the boy around. Perhaps there is no physical space because we know that our urban dwellings are populated. You have seen this. And, the boys, The Gayle Report shows, are thrown out unto the street. They have to fend for themselves, catch and kill."

ACP Chester Williams
"And does that mean, Jules, we will maintain the status quo? You see, this is one of the things that I don't understand, you know. We have this tendency of seeing things, knowing that it is wrong and and we just sit their idly, seeing it just continue to go on, even though we see what it is causing our society. I am not that type of person. I believe that if something is broken. We must try to fix it. And, to just accept the status quo, I'm not going to do that. If these children do not have a space in their homes, because of whatever situations, the parent, be it a mother, or a father, still have that responsibility. And, when they fail to carry out their responsibilities, there are provisions that are put in law that can be followed."

Later on in the news, you'll see Williams putting that belief into action with a rehabilitation programme for the Jane Usher basketball court.