Crime Stoppers programme hits Belizean streets
The police and the community…they are supposed to work together in the war on crime, but it sometimes appears that the two are pitted against each other. Today the police department embarked on a project that they hope will make up for the communication deficit. Patrick Jones reports.
Patrick Jones, Reporting
For over ten years, calling 911 has been the simple and easy to remember way to contact the Police in an emergency. Now the Belize Police Department is hoping for the same success with the introduction of 922, a new service citizens can use to help fight crime.
G. Michael Reid, Police Press Officer
“911 is strictly for emergency calls and we’re really stressing that the public understand that. We’ve had a lot of abuse of this number; a lot of people have been calling this number for trivial matters. This is not what 911 is supposed to be doing. 911 is supposed to be for immediate response from the police, immediate emergencies if you will. And hopefully the 922, the new 922 number will give people another easy to remember number to dial when they want to pass on information to the Police Department.”
Stanley Leslie, Facilitator, 922 Service
“What we need to put in place is something whereby all calls made to 911 and 922 by the general public can be monitored. In the sense that we need to know how long it took before the call was answered, how long the attendant took on the call, also we need to know basically what the conversation was about.”
That conversation, the police say, will be strictly monitored so that the abuse of the 911 service by prank calls will not carry over.
Mirna Pandy, Supervisor, Police Communications Centre
“The impression I get is that the prank calls can be dealt with. We need to communicate with B.T.L. to identify where the call is coming from so the police will be able to go and deal with those prank calls. And I think once they have dealt with a couple of them and the public at large know that okay, these prank calls are being dealt with and the police is catching up on us, I am sure that we will have less and less prank calls coming in.”
The system provided by B.T.L. comes equipped with caller identification and its incorporation with existing police infrastructure is expected to give law enforcement authorities an edge over the bad guys.
G. Michael Reid
“The communications hub as such includes the phones that receive the calls coming from the public and the radio that is in touch with the officers out there on the beat, with the mobile patrols and with the other districts.”
Reid says that the new service can be accessed from anywhere in the country and is another attempt to bridge the communication gap between the police and the community they are sworn to protect.
While calls made to 922 will be free of cost to the person making the call, the actual cost of the call will be borne by the Government of Belize. Patrick Jones for News 5.
The inauguration of the new emergency service is part of activities for Police Week being observed under the theme: Making Belize Safer.
