Getting to Know Belize – A New Policing Effort of Eastern Division

Eastern Division South has embarked on another community policing program for the summer. It targets underprivileged families and youths who are at risk of being recruited by gangs. Fifty participants between the ages of ten to seventeen years will be taken on field trips and visit institutions where they could end up if they are entangled in the criminal justice system. The program was officially launched at the CYDP Center on Caesar Ridge Road.

Chester Williams

ACP Chester Williams, Regional Commander, Eastern Division South

“We believe that the program will be helpful in the sense that these young children, instead of being on the street where they can be recruited by the gang elements, we will have them for a week, during which they will be going through different activities as a form of diversion. When the children are out on the streets over the summer doing nothing, the gang members see them and take the opportunity to recruit them into their organization. So we are trying to get to these young people before the gang members get to them.”

Elroy Carcamo

Sgt. Elroy Carcamo, Head, Community Policing Unit

“We have some life skills lessons set out for them and thereafter they will be going into a lifeline tour where we will take them from the hotspots to the police station, from the police station to the courts and from the courts to Kolbe Foundation and then to the Cemetery. The last three days for the program for the first set, because it is two sets that we are looking at, the last three days of the program is about getting them to know their country. A lot of these youths have not been out of Belize City itself and they don’t know what is out there to offer.”

According to ACP Williams, the program is starting with limited funds and there is need for more partnership with the business community for additional funds.