B.P.D.’s Crime Prevention Strategy during Christmas Holidays

Chester Williams

Downtown Belize City and in all municipalities across the country, residents are out and about doing their last minute shopping in preparation for the Christmas holidays. As these shoppers go about their merry way, they can do so with little fear of being targeted because additional officers have been placed on the ground as part of the police department’s crime prevention strategy. Commissioner of Police Chester Williams shares some details.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“It’s the time of the year when we anticipate and rightfully so that not only Belize City, but across the country, shoppers will be busy doing their respective Christmas shoppings, merchants will have an amount of cash on them because of the constant sales that they are doing during the course of the day and also delivery trucks may also be moving around with large quantity of monies. And so what we try to do around this time is to see how we can bring officers who would normally be off to come back and work extra—it is called extraneous duties—and at the end of the Christmas season, then they are paid for the extra that they work. Again this is done with a view to ensure that we have an adequate number of officers, particularly within the commercial areas to make sure that the shoppers shop in a safe atmosphere and that the merchants do business is a safe environment.”