Criminal Activities in Rural Communities; More Police Needed

Kareem Musa

Earlier today, the Home Affairs Minister also responded to concerns about criminal activities in rural communities. Hattieville, Roaring Creek and Dangriga have been identified as hotspots for criminal activity outside of Belize City.  Recently, there was the robbery turned murder in Hattieville and an armed robbery of a store in La Democracia. But are criminal elements from urban areas travelling to rural communities to commit these crimes? Is there a need for more police officers in these areas? Here’s what Minister Kareem Musa had to say.

Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs

“What it is an indication of is more criminals who are in the rural communities. So it is not as though we have criminals from urban settings now moving to rural communities to commit crime. It is actually home grown individuals from these communities that are committing these crimes. And so, the police [department] definitively has to make adjustments. We do have a very large geographical area to cover with just two thousand three hundred police officers. We do have another intake that’s going to come out shortly and we have identified that which is why we made those adjustments. We actually sent six of the new recruits from the last intake to Hattieville because we recognise Hattieville as a hotspot. We’ve recognised Dangriga and also Roaring Creek as three areas outside of Belize City that are hotspot areas that we need to dedicate more of our resources to. So we have been making the adjustments and I think that we’ll also be making a push to have CCTV cameras within these communities. Again, a very large rural community and so most police effort and more officers on the ground I think would help in that situation.”