Police Intake #96 Passes Out on Thursday

One hundred and forty-seven newly-trained officers will be graduating from the Belize Police Training Academy on Thursday. Recruit squad ninety-six is the second group of officers to undergo the Police Training Academy’s newly designed curriculum that entails courses in human rights and constitutional law.  During his appearance on Open Your Eyes on Monday, Commissioner of Police Chester Williams revealed that many of them will be assigned to the northern districts.

Chester Williams

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

“We are seeing that the last recruit squad and this one, they are like a new type of police officers in the sense they are taught from the new curriculum which has a huge component of human rights and constitution, because one for the cries of the people is that police don’t know how to treat us. Perhaps it could have been that in the past the recruits were taught one or two hours of human rights, compared to now it is a whole week. It is an entire course, a whole week on human rights. Human rights were taught to them by DCP Jones who is an attorney.”

Paul Lopez

“Any determination in terms of how they will be disseminated across the country?”

Chester Williams

“Well, that is the toughest one Paul, having to decide the disbursement of those officers. Historically, Belize City would get about sixty percent. This time around, Belize City will get about five percent. We have a number of expansions across the country, more and more communities are asking for the presence of police. The Corozal district has a border issue, issue with the cartels and drug dealers, so there is a need to expand Corozal. Likewise in Orange Walk, they have an expansion as well. So, the northern districts will be getting most of the officers, followed by Stann Creek district and then Belmopan.”