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And our final two stories tonight are about the encouraging trend in reduced murders Belize is seeing. The country ended the year recording 85 murders - which is surely 85 too many - so that's nothing to celebrate - but it is worthy of mention hat 85 is 28 fewer than last year.
That's a major stride forward - and it accounts for the lowest murder rate in more than two decades.
Two days ago, Jomarie Lanza asked the commissioner to discuss it:
Reporter:
"The final murder count for 2023 is 85, the lowest since 2005 and the murder rate is 19.1 which is the second lowest murder rate recorded this century. How do you feel about this and what is your goal for 2024"
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Well certainly hard work does pay off I can say that I have had five, six years of sleepless nights. Always trying to dig it e out what I can do along with the police department and our partner agencies to reduce the murder count. That's the main one for us. And while many times we came close to achieving that we have not been able to until this time around and it just goes to show that if you believe in what you're doing. Believe in the support that you are getting from other organizations and you employ your best efforts that you can achieve anything in life and so we are not going to as I said begin to beat our chest but rather look at all the good things we did in 2023 and see how we can replicate and even do better in 2024 to make sure that we maintain the numbers as low as possible. As Jules said to me in a discussion we had over the weekend that is unfair to really judge the murder count based on numbers because populations do grow and when the populations grow the potential for criminal activities to increase will be there and so he said that the proper method to be employed is the per capita number and this year is the first time we are seeing a per capita below 20. Other than I think 2000 so I think it is the first time since 2000 that we have a per capita count of less than 20. We are going to see how best we can maintain that. I know it is not going to be easy. It's going to be difficult but I have every faith and every confidence that the hard work of the police department and the support of our partner agents we can certainly replicate and maybe even do better."
Shyne Says Don't Celebrate Murder Count Just Yet
And yesterday the Leader of the Opposition said he was happy with the decrease in murder numbers, but if you thought he would finally be paying kudos to the Minister of Police or the ComPol, think again. In fact, he warned them not to get ahead of themselves just yet.
Shyne Barrow, Leader of the Opposition
"I am happy that moderate improvements are being made because we have to keep everything in context. The statistics reduced drastically in 2020, it went down to 102. During the UDP administration we were at 99, I believe that was the lowest, we had a drastic drop in 2013 from 2012, so again, while I am happy that we are making moderate statistical improvements, I would encourage the Minister of Police, the Commissioner of Police, and the Prime Minister not to get ahead of themselves because there's a lot of work to do. I always take my hat off to the Belize police department and all of the hardworking police officers that we have that do their best to serve and protect us but there is a lot of work to do so that we can have the systematic overhaul that we need so that we can not just have 15 less murders than we had in the lowest period during the UDP era but to have a complete drastic reversal downward trend when it comes to murder so there is a lot of work left to be done."
