And while burglaries are the law enforcement challenge at this time, the department is preparing its officers to be able to accept cybercrime complaints from the general public.
This morning, 99 officers attended the first of a two-day training in Cybercrime for First Responders & Digital Forensic Analysts. That training is happening at the National Police Training Academy, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) is funding, organizing & facilitating it.
We asked the Police Commissioner about the training, and here's what he had to say:
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"This morning the UNODC is hosting a virtual cybercrime training for police officers. I think the magistracy as well as the DPP. The training is centred around responders to cybercrime and again it will deal with all the elements of cybercrime, looking at what we can do to properly investigate having the legal mechanism in place to aid investigating prosecution as well as the courts in convicting offenders of cybercrime. We know that in the police department itself we have an issue in terms of officers not being aware of when a cybercrime offence had occurred. Like for instance if you were to see someone bullying you on social media and you go to the police for the most part police will tell you we can't do anything. Well in fact the legislation is there and they can so something. So even within the department itself we are doing a lot of sensitizations to bring our officers up to speed in letting them understand the law itself and what their powers are under the law, so that we will be able to address the issues of people where cybercrime is concerned. Once the complaint is made then the officer who would be dealing with the complaint would make a request to the cybercrime unit here in Belmopan and the unit here is going to ensure that they notify Facebook to preserve the information. It will be preserved so that when we get a court order, they will have it and once that is done then we can download what we can download from the site itself. That will serve as evidence. But we also ask people that when they come that they can bring along a copy of the post that they find to be offensive to them."
