Police promote community relations

While the police and other authorities have been under fire from a number of different quarters the news is not all bad for the force. Today I visited a group of officers who are trying to improve relations with the people they are sworn to protect.

Four years after the Police Department introduced its zone beat laison officer’s pilot program in Belize City, the force is now looking to expand the activity countrywide. The program, which was the brainchild of Police Commissioner Ornel Brooks, has officers working in close touch with the community they serve.

Yolanda Murray, Superintendent of police

“They visit them; they do house to house visits, speak to them, find out problems that are affecting them in their area; they look out for new gang base that are being formed; they gather intelligence on drugs; they find out about the environment in their zone, whether it is garbage collection that is not being collected, whether it is a public health hazard, whether it is an old vehicle that has been parked in an area for too long.”

According to Superintendent Yolanda Murray, the program has been so successful in Belize City that they have started training twenty four more officers for a similar effort to be launched in the districts.

Yolanda Murray

“Presently what we are doing is having this training so that we can extend the program to all the different police formations and this is countrywide. So we have two representatives from each district and six new ones from Belize City too, that are being trained today to extend this program.”

The men and women officers participating in the one day symposium are learning about intelligence gathering, interpersonal relationship skills, the zone beat concept and how their work as zone beat officers can impact the Crimes Investigation Branch and the Violent Crimes Intelligence Unit. The symposium is taking place under the theme: “The police and community working in partnership for a safer Belize”.

The symposium was conducted by Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of National Security, Carlos Perdomo.