Do you think Operation Jaguar is sustainable in the long term?
The criminals appear to have gone under the radar this past holiday weekend. The police blotter is brief and no major crimes have been reported. In fact in the past week, since the launch of Operation Jaguar, the streets of the City have been devoid of gun violence. It is a costly mission that takes up a large number of security personnel. So we pose the question tonight: “Do you think Operation Jaguar is sustainable in the long term to keep the streets safe?” Send your comments and responses using your SMART phones to 8668 or post your vote on our e-poll at channel5belize.com. You can also send an e-mail with your comments to questions@channel5belize.com.
Police and the BDF are patrolling the streets right now which seem to put a small dent in criminals side, and this has helped so far crimes seems to have fallen under the radar but for how long?
We all know this operation has an expiration date, is the GOB planning for a substitute when this operation is expired, if not, keep locking your doors at night because the criminals have not gone away, and they are not all in prison lock away.
I can pretend to be optimistic but that would make me just darn ignorant.
The cost to the city of not addressing this problem is greater than the cost of Operation Jaguar. The country depends heavily on its tourism industry and Belize City having one of the highest murder rates in the region is keeping many tourists and investors away, not to mention the effect it has on us, the citizens. I applaud law enforcement for its efforts in combating crime in the city. It’s sad that so many people have adopted the cynical view that this small effort will make no difference and they sit back and criticize those who are making the effort. We should all support it for as long as possible.
A sustainable social component needs to be added to this operation for it to have the desired effect.
I do not think that Operation Jaguar is sustainable and I believe that last night and this morning I heard the PM say as much. The operational tempo is too high and besides the obvious financial cost in about 6 -8 weeks human factors will click in: fatigue, disinterest, complacency, etc.
On another note, in the absence of clearly defined objectives I don’t know that we can say whether or not the operation has met success–how do you measure sucess? What was the operation designed to do and has it achieved those objectives? I have not heard any public statement from GOB in this regard.
none-the-less, I think we can all agree that it has met some success in halting what seemed, hitherto, like an uncontrolable crime wave. The question now has to be What Next? Now that we have been able stop the haemorrhage we need to put in place short term measures to minimize the likelihood of a surge in crime once the operation is rolled back…clearing of all vacant lots, spray with herbicide to control foilage, more street lights, more intelligent police patrol deployment, etc. In the mid term we need to look at social programs designed to eradicate the sense of hopelessness amongst our youths (I am no expert here).
And then there is the POLICE!!!! We need to move quickly to address the structural problems in the Police–we need to fire all those corrupt police including the senior officers as well as those who condone the rogue behaviour; we need to bring across some BDF officers and import some foreign police to bridge the gap. The Police in moving forward must develop a professional officer corp, it obvious to me that the constable to commissioner model is not working. By the time the policeman reaches even the junior officer level he has been severely tainted by the culture of corruption that pervades the department–remember that corruptions not only includes corrupt actions but it also includes inaction…this really is the heart of the police’s problems: TOLERANCE. Tolerance for unprofessionalism, corruption, ineptitude, abuse of the very people they are suppose to protect!
Forgive my rambling, just my 2 cents
I’m looking for continuity as we’ve seen things are put in place but dies a natural death too soon
archive.channel5belize.com’s done it again! Incredible read.
If I had a penny for every time I came to archive.channel5belize.com! Amazing writing.
If only more than 25 people would hear this..