And while Gill wants to end what he calls a "mix-up" - "mix-up", the Minister says he is aiming higher. He says that Cabinet approved a multi-prong approach to dealing with crime. And this strategy tackles counseling, free education, poverty alleviation and increased surveillance. It's a long term long solution that will take time to implement, but Minister Musa gave us the full details of what's to come.
Hon. Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs and New Growth Industries
"It entails a therapeutic approach. It means we're going to have professionals going into the south side and portions of the north side of Belize City to give mentoring, to give counseling to these young people who are afflicted and who have lost their loved ones over these years. It means that we're going to be setting up the youth service corps in Mountain Pine Ridge. We're going to be offering job skills training for these young people. And perhaps the greatest accomplishment will come in the form of free education as a pilot project on the Southside of Belize City."
"In addition to free education, we also intend to change. Well, the Ministry of Education intends to change the mandatory age school age from 14 to at least 16 years old. So you have to be in school, at least up until the age of 16 years old. We will have clean up and beautification monthly programs within these within these constituencies. And we will also be establishing 12 new community hubs, as you know, Love Foundation, Kolbe Foundation. They have been successful over the years in creating these entrepreneurial hubs, in particular hotspots of Belize City for individuals and young men who want to turn their lives around. And so the government is realizing how important this is, and we are actually going to be tackling that as well. But from a policing standpoint, of course, we're going to have our policing efforts increase in these hotspot areas. We're going to have offender focused policing strategies, greater use of the gang membership law, taking more of these offenders to court and getting them prosecuted in a Fast-Track manner. And as well, as you would recall, a few months ago in the National Assembly, I mentioned that we have to use our tools, and that is innovation and technology. So we need to blanket the city with closed circuit television cameras, these surveillance cameras. Believe it or not, they have been a huge asset. We have about four to four of them right now in Belize City. We want to increase that by an additional 100 surveillance cameras. And why is this important? You're aware that we have an issue with eyewitnesses giving evidence and testifying and giving statements to police. But what these cameras do, because they're high definition, they could follow the perpetrator from the act where it is committed, the act of violence, where it is committed all the way to where the perpetrator ends up."
Ministries such as Education and Youth and Sports will also be a part of this strategy.
