This morning the top brass of the Police Department and Ministry of National Security, flanked by a number of stakeholders, took questions from the press with regard to the recently completed audit of the Police Department by Jamaican Harold Crooks.
The retired former police superintendent, criminal justice expert and government advisor handed over a lengthy final report on his findings and recommendations to the National Security Council on November 30 – and subsequently left the country.
His term in Belize was largely shrouded in secrecy by police and government officials. He came suddenly, worked silently, and departed in inauspicious circumstances. Apart from briefly speaking to this reporter at a police event in June of 2008, he gave no known interviews. Even details of how he came to be appointed were difficult to get at any point from a friendly, but inflexible Ministry.
And even today, the media were denied – for now, at any rate – the full details of the over 100-page report that Minister Hon. Carlos Perdomo described as “straightforward, analytic and honest,” and which he claimed he had read “over and over.”
We had to settle instead for the Ministry’s “executive summary” of Crooks’ findings and recommendations, many of them already painfully apparent, nearly all implementable, according to CEO Brigadier General (ret.) Lloyd Gillett.
The Minister reminded the gathering that he was still committed to fighting crime on all fronts, but described the process as “dynamic” and “a constant struggle.”
According to Gillett, some of the recommendations needed further detailing and cooperation with sister agencies and Ministries, but the majority will be implemented within the next five years.
Commissioner Gerald Westby and his two assistants, Crispin Jeffries and Allen Whylie, outlined a nine-point strategy for immediate impact on the criminal situation.
The strategies are as follows:
1. Recommendations to the Minister that certain areas in Belize City be designated for special operational attention, enabling more “stop and search, house searches, and intelligence-led targeted patrols.”
2. Directed policing of crime-ridden areas by dedicated beat officers, especially in Port Loyola, Collet and Lake Independence; special attention to be paid to bicycle offences. Included in this section is a plan for mobile police stations to be assigned to these divisions, initially to answer reports and offer effective service, with expanded service elsewhere after the situation calms down.
3. A list of ten most wanted individuals to be prepared and circulated around the Department.
4. A list of prominent “drug barons” prepared and a campaign against them started with assistance from the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), Income Tax Department and the office of the DPP.
5. Recommendations for tax incentives on businesses investing in security and surveillance equipment. (This is likely a reaction to the many incidents now being caught on tape and aired on the daily news.)
6. Improved intelligence and interdiction through phone intercepts, legislated in an Intercept of Communications Act.
7. Development of the Special Constables and outreach to security companies; hiring a neighborhood watch coordinator to organize citizens and businesses in Belize City.
8. Legislation, legislation, legislation! Among other things, the legal age of applicants for firearm licenses will go up from 16 to 25, bail will be denied for offenders who commit multiple offenses after having already received bail, and released offenders to be monitored by the department.
9. Acquiring and installing the Integrated Ballistics Information System to analyze bullets and cartridge casings of firearms used in crimes, and other equipment.
Not a word was said about financing, apart from vague mention of including some of these requests in this year’s budget, due before the end of March.