If our political leaders were anything like captains of ships, who as a point of honor are the last to leave their vessel if it is the casualty of a blunder or a natural disaster, they wouldn’t sleep at nights and they’d suffer from major bouts of the squirms when visiting with leaders of disciplined nations.
In our political system, which is more complicated than running a ship, much of the glory for successes and flak for failures go to the Prime Minister. Not too far behind the PM is the Cabinet, which by law has collective responsibility for everything that happens in the country under their watch. What has been happening under the watch of governments since independence should make every individual who holds or has held a leadership position cringe. Murders, rapes, armed robberies, and fatal traffic accidents too, have been escalating at rates way beyond the growth of our population.
The Ministry of Home Affairs and the Attorney General’s Ministry are directly responsible for dealing with violent crimes, but not by a long shot should the ministers in charge of those departments be alone in feeling the pain and hanging their heads in shame. Indeed, we all have blame for the rampant violence in our country. But, though none can say they have no blame for this failure, we elect people to lead, and we pay them well and exalt them with the title “honorable”, with the expectation that they will help us deliver on our constitutional obligation to protect the lives and limbs of all within our 8,867 square miles.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating. The numbers say that our country is very soft on crime. It’s all about results, and ours are dismal. Our leaders shouldn’t be sleeping well at nights, and they should be uncomfortable sipping whiskey and wine with leaders who have done the work to keep their people safe.
Our dire situation isn’t hopeless. Everyone believes that if we were better at solving crimes we would have less of it. More than a decade and a half ago, one of our governments promised to improve our forensics capabilities to help us get justice in the courts, but a lot more needs to be done in that area. Just about the only effective thing the GOB has done to improve the conviction rate was to replace trial by jury with trial by judges for the more sensational murder cases.
A major complaint of the police is that the people are not eager to assist them with critical information. On the surface, it would seem that the people are content to coddle dangerous criminals, but a closer look shows a different story.
In the book, Like Bush Fire, by social scientists Dr. Herbert Gayle, Ms. Virginia Hampton and Ms. Nelma Mortis, some very unflattering things are said about the police. The police are ill-equipped, and over the 40-plus years since independence, political leaders have interfered in their work, the department has been corrupted by the proceeds of the illegal drug trade, and repeated defeats in the courts by criminal lawyers have demoralized them.
The Belizean people don’t trust the police. To make Belizeans feel safer about sharing information with police, there’s a Crime Stopper system that allows them to share what they know anonymously, but that hasn’t translated to more convictions in the courts, definitely not significantly. For a time, community policing was catching on, but maybe because of lack of support by the police, or distrust in the police, that is now largely dormant.
The Commissioner of Police has said that the department has very quietly weeded out many corrupt officers, but because we are dealing with a problem that has festered for decades it will take some time for public confidence in the police to increase. While the department is working on cleaning up itself, it might be good to consider setting up a special group of cops who are run by a board that is vetted by/answerable to the Senate. This would serve to lessen political interference and increase confidence.
Considerable investment must be made in the Belize Crime Observatory (BCO) so that it can be more effective in gathering the information it needs to make it an effective deterrent to violent crime. The BCO needs more staffing, and tertiary institutions in the country must get involved in the research to provide the organization with data that gets into the gut of violent crime—murders, rapes, armed robbery ies. Knowledge is power. With more information, the police and people will be better positioned to address our weaknesses.
Until better times, say goodbye to pigtail and corned beef; eat more eggs
The Statistical Institute of Belize report this week which stated that the overall national inflation rate for goods and services purchased by Belizean households in March 2022 was 5.7%, is just putting a number to what Belizeans have been aware of for some time now. The cost of living keeps going up, at a rate that might be equal to or greater than what was seen at the time of the Great Depression, which forced labor hero Antonio Soberanis and the Labor and Unemployed Association to take to the streets, and caused the 1949 devaluation, which followed the Second Great War.
This rise in the cost of goods and services is happening at a time when our earnings are mostly static, or going down. We need to get through this period, and one way, as a caller to the WuB said on Tuesday morning, is for us to become thriftier in our spending.
A cry went up when the price of a lowly tin of imported corned beef rose to an incredible $9.50, and prior to that the pain was about the increased price of imported pigtail. We need to stop crying over the price of pigtail, and corned beef. What we need to do is eat more locally produced eggs.
A good-sized egg has 6 to 8 grams of protein, while a tin of corned beef has 56 grams. What’s the fuss over the food in the can? With $9.50, the price for a tin of corned beef which contains 56 grams of protein, we can buy about 2 ½ dozen eggs, with 210 grams of protein.
According to the WorldAtlas, the Japanese eat an average of 320 eggs per year, and the Chinese eat 300. The website thekitchn.com says the average American consumes 279 eggs per year. In 2008 7News reported that Belizeans ate 110 eggs; in 2011 belizepoultry.com reported that Belizeans consumed 141 eggs, and in 2020 News5 reported that egg consumption in Belize had gone up to 170 per person.
We need to double our consumption of eggs. Eggs are healthy, and there are dozens of ways to prepare them. Eggs are easy to produce. A family in an urban area doesn’t need to set aside much space for a few layer hens. They can feed the birds with scraps, and with a little supplemental feed a layer can produce over 200 eggs in a year. The next big thing from the Ministry of Agriculture must be a laying hen for every household.