Freetown Area Rep speaks on crime situation
We last heard from him in the House of Representatives for the 2009-2010 budget debate. And one of the major issues brought up by Freetown Area Representative, Francis Fonseca, was the absence of a clear crime control strategy. Since the issue of crime is dominant in the media, when Fonseca took the couch on Channel Five’s breakfast show, Open Your Eyes, this morning he offered advice on steps that can help to curve the crime situation.
Francis Fonseca, Freetown Area Representative
“We should set as an objective quite frankly doubling the size of the police force. We have, as I said, about eleven hundred members of the Belize department. Let’s aim to have two thousand police officers on the streets of Belize. There’s no other solution than having the presence of police officers on the ground in the city, the main towns and cities and also focusing on community policing again. I sense there’s not a strong commitment to community policing anymore. I know that’s an ongoing debate in the Belize Police Department about the impact of community policing. But I really believe in it and I think if we combine those two factors, getting boots on the ground, really spending and putting police officers on the ground and combining that with community policing and setting up more booths in communities and neighbourhoods. I really think we can turn this thing around.”
William Neal
“And issues like the Merida Initiative, do you think we stand to benefit from that?”
Francis Fonseca
“I think the jury is still out on that. We have to learn more about it, we have to hear more about it. But I think there are some positive things that can come out of it for Belize and whenever we’re discussing these issues regionally I think we benefit from that because our neighbours have gone through a lot worse than we have so we can learn from their experiences.”
Fonseca also touched on other issues such as the economic downturn, the upcoming Summit of the Americas and gave his personal support to taking the Guatemalan claim to the I.C.J.
