Government’s Free Education Project in Belize City Linked to Decrease in Crime, Says Commissioner of Police

The Commissioner of Police, Chester Williams, believes that the government’s free education project in Belize City greatly contributed to this year’s decrease in crime. The police are ending the year with a historic dip in homicides, which has not been seen in over sixteen years. Williams appeared on the Morning Show and spoke about how the upliftment project has lessened the number of youths involved in criminal activity.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police: “You’d know that the free education campaign on south side Belize City is paying dividend to our work. A number of these at risk youths are now enrolled in school. Those who could not have afforded to go to school can now be in school and so we have seen that there is an increase of enrollment particularly of young males on south side Belize City and that again certainly is contributing to what we’re seeing now. We have the Ministry of Youth again they have been engaged with us. We have human development looking at the whole issue of the pantry program. I think we’re doing a study where we were looking at having human development go into the different households to see what are some of the needs of the families and not just from an education standpoint but to look at their social needs and then we try to see how we can address those needs as best as we can particularly where the issue of feeding is concerned because many a times children may go to school and they do not have anything to eat and they go to school on a hungry belly. A child will not learn properly if they’re not eating or whatever before they go to school.”

Twelve more schools will benefit from the project next year.