Today the police department held its National Compstat meeting and All Officers Conference in Belmopan. It's a day full of high level discussions among commanders and top ranking cops, and it's also when the police department receives their report card.
According to the ComPol, the double-digit murder count was their most important achievement, and it now sets the tone for 2024. He says it won't be easy to beat, but they're employing every strategy to do it.
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"It was certainly a good year for us in terms of our crime fighting strategy while when you look at the overall competency figure for 2023 and 2022, we were even in terms of major crimes reported to the police. When we look at the major crimes where court actions were reported as opposed to when court actions were not requested, we have a slight increase compared to 2022 but the most important achievement for 2023 was reduction in murders where our figure for 2023 was 87 as opposed to 113 for 2022, so we have a decrease of something around 24, thereabout, or just around 23% reduction in murders when compared to 2022. So while we do celebrate our achievements for 2023, we still do believe that there's a lot that needs to be done and today we look at strategies to see what we can do better moving forward to ensure that- we know 2024 is going to be difficult for us because the figures for 23 is so good and when you have a good figure for the year prior it's always difficult to beat but we will do our best to see what we can do to make sure we continue to keep our figures going down."
"The year started off well I must say. We do have one murder so far in Independence which I think should not have occurred but the police continue to remain vigilant out in the streets, we continue to work with our partners, the LIU and other agencies to see what we can do stem the issue of crime particularly in Belize City where we have the programs running through LIU and the all of government approach."
Kareem Asks Community To Help Cops
And the Police Minister shared the ComPol's sentiments, and added that they will work towards decreasing property crimes in 2024. But he emphasized the need for help from the community.
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"The annual Compstat meeting is always important where we have, in addition to receiving the statistics of the previous year, we have an all officers conference that entails an engagement of all our senior officers across the country and receiving the type of statistics that we get at compstat is not just a good measurement tool, it's also an accountability tool for each precinct and each formation but most importantly it is a tool to form our strategies for the coming year. Like you rightly mentioned, I think we had a very successful year at least when it came to the reduction in murder, certainly it's a huge achievement for commissioner of police and for all police officers across this country and I take this opportunity to thank them as well as all our partners like LIU, like the business community, all of those partners that are truly engaged with us in our fight against crime."
"I think what we are learning from the statistics this year is that property crimes in particularly burglaries and robberies are areas that we need to focus on and I think that this is where each and every one of us plays a pivotal role in the fight against crime because as neighborhood watch groups are now growing in popularity, that is where we see a lot of success because police officers cannot be everywhere all at once, we know that, and so we need the law abiding citizens which makes up 390-something thousand of us that can come together and form neighborhood watch groups within our area to report on any suspicious activity to the police officers. I know that in my particular constituency we have seen great success with the Kings Park Knights and the Kings Park neighborhood watch on a whole, Courtney is smiling there, but very successful because you see the relationship building between the community and officers and the police have a responsibility to look at those blogs and respond because if you do not respond, that is where that relationship breaks down so we need to work hand in hand, police and community, and I can promise you those property crimes will go down if we have greater participation of members of the public."
Prioritizing Police Welfare In 2024
And while the police use compstat to look at the start of the new year, the end of the fiscal year is approaching and today the media asked the Minister of Home Affairs what he will be prioritizing in his budget for 2024/2025. He lamented the loss of PC Irvin Chan and explained that the welfare of cops will be one of their main focuses.
Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"Part of, and the unfortunate incident with Mr Chan this morning, PC Chan in Sarteneja, certainly brings to the fore something that I value immensely and that is the welfare of our police officers and so strategizing forward, yes we have to come up with strategies to fight crime but we also have to come up wit strategies to make sure that our officers are happy, to make sure that they are satisfied in the work that they're doing because at the end of the day, they are all human beings and we oftentimes forget that they're human beings and they suffer the same types of issues that we all do in terms of physical ailments in terms of stress, it's a very high stress job and so that is going to be a particular focus for our ministry in the upcoming budget, is the welfare of our officers. In addition to that, innovation and technology is always the mantra that we came in on, tomorrow i am proud to launch an additional fifty cameras in Belize City, fifty CCTV cameras and as you all would know in the media, cameras have been a huge aid for the police department where in some instances witnesses do not feel safe to participate, we have the benefit of cameras and so that again is the direction we want to go. As you know, we introduced body cams, we want to introduce dash cams as well in motor vehicles moving forwards and so innovation and technology is always the centerpiece, the welfare of officers as I said and of course, looking forward to the new recruits who are going to be graduating in a few months, certainly adding to our formation, it will take us up to around 2,400 police officers. We're still a lot less than what we had in 2016 but we're going our best with the 2,400 officers that we have."
ComPol Wistful Remembrance
Yesterday we told you that the commissioner of police was celebrating his fifth year in office. While this newsroom hasn't hesitated to criticize the compol - we also have to praise as being the first ComPol who's made himself so available to the media, and who's never shied from a good back and forth argument. Today, we asked for his wistful remembrance of the last five years.
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"What has that five years, when you look back been like for you, especially considering, we consider you the most open, most accessible, but most controversial commissioner that we've had?"
"Certainly the battle with Jules makes it exciting but the five years has been bittersweet, we have had some very good times, I always try my best to see what I can do to improve the police department and more so to make the citizens of this country safe. I have many sleepless nights I can tell you for sure but when we get the results that we are getting now, the sleepless nights are worthwhile. As a department, we are committed and I must thank my commanders because it's not just me, my commanders on the ground in the respective regions also play an important role in making sure we achieve our objectives and more so my minister, very supportive of the work that we do, always joining us and seeing what he can do to help us be able to deal with whatever situation. So looking forward for 2024 and we're going to try our best to make 2024 an even better year."
Courtney Menzies:
"Do you think you'll stick around for another five years?"
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Another five years, no, no, no."
Reporter:
"What would you say is one of your biggest accomplishments in these five years?"
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"Well certainly to ensure that the amount of complaints of police brutality decrease by over 50%, it's a huge accomplishment as well as the fact that I can say throughout my five years tenure as commissioner, every year we have seen that the murder count continue to decline as opposed to before where we were seeing it just go up so those for me are extremely critical because saving lives is important and to have a department that respects the human rights and dignity of people is also important so making sure that we continue to decrease the amount of complaints against police, police brutality is certainly a huge accomplishment for us."
If the Compol completes another year - and that is always a big "IF"- he will be the longest serving commissioner in memory.
