38 Law Enforcement Officers Graduate as GREAT Instructors

Since it started in 2011 in Belize, over two hundred officers have completed the GREAT programme of the police department which is turning things around for at risk youths.  The local officers, who received the training, were joined by counterparts from El Salvador, a country where gangs are prevalent. The U.S. initiative targets youths at an early age before they fall into the hands of the gangs. News Five’s Duane Moody reports.

Duane Moody, Reporting

Thirty-eight law enforcement officers; twenty-five from Belize and fifteen from El Salvador, received their certificates after having successfully completed a one week training course on the Gang Resistance Education And Training Programme of the United States. Those from Belize will now return to their respective jurisdictions where they will be working with at risk youths from primary schools.

Chester Williams

Chester Williams, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Operations)

“Now that you have the knowledge that has been shared to you, it is expected that you will not horde the knowledge; instead you will now go out and share the knowledge to empower others. We are grateful to be partnering with the U.S. embassy to be facilitating training like these because if we truly want to stem the gang recruitments, I believe that the right place for us to start is in the schools. And the great programme is tailored to ensure that we reach out to our vulnerable young people with a view to ensure that they do not fall victims of the street due to them being recruited into the different criminal gangs.”

So to ensure that the new GREAT instructors can reach out to the vulnerable young people, they participated in the intense training that professionals brought in.

Elroy Carcamo

Insp. Elroy Carcamo, GREAT Focal Point, Belize

“The training was intense as usual and they had to go through tests to ensure that they are certified to facilitate the GREAT programme as usual within the country that they come from. That takes us to about two hundred and twenty-nine officers here in Belize that are certified to facilitate the GREAT programme. They were trained in how to deliver the lessons in the classroom because they are police officers and they have to have that transition from a police officer to a classroom teacher. They got that training and then they were taught to identify students who have different intellectual abilities because we do not know how we deal with that in schools. And then how to facilitate the lessons by the way how it is set up within the curriculum.”

It is the fourth such programme where officers from another Central American country are participating in the training. With over two hundred members of the Belize Police Department trained and over seventeen thousand students having been a part of the programme, U.S. Chargé d’ Affairs, Keith Gilges says it is a collective dedication to stem the criminal activities affecting the countries.

Keith Gilges

Keith Gilges, Chargé d’ Affairs, U.S. Embassy, Belize

“To break the cycle of crime, there is no substitute for reaching children before they are lured into a gang or tempted by some other dangerous activities. The Gang Resistance Programme that you are joining today has a long history of success. In 1991, the Phoenix Arizona Police Department developed a programme of education and training to improve the capacity of young people to resist the temptation that gangs represent and the false promises of security and inclusion they offered. It worked and it was soon replicated in communities across the United States. In 2009, we began to offer GREAT in Central America through the INL Programme Offices at our sister embassies in those countries; in 2011, we brought GREAT to Belize.”

Duane Moody for News Five.