…And corruption in the police department is a result of neglect

Equally important among Gayle's preliminary findings is corruption within the Belize Police Department. That, according to the research, is the result of neglect in the working environment. Over the years the needs of the department have been ignored and in the process officers have not been able to foster healthy relationships with the public.

Herbert Gayle

"Most of the stuff about the police were just way beyond me; levels of corruption high levels of neglect; the police being neglected themselves, which becomes natural-if I'm neglected I'm going to be corrupt. One of the first things that came out on the police was sympathy for them. I would be honest, before we started people were on the street saying do something about the police, them corrupt. You got the impression from everybody that here's a bunch of guys who are just really out of this world. When you got to know them you realize they were more human than anybody else. They were suffering, poor equipment, poor relationship with other persons, not treated well by other people; just endless amount of problems. And that is something that we're going to have to sit down with more than anything else and work on.

herbert gayle

We're now heading towards intervention. As I said to people last year, this study is not about shelving, it's about applying the research. And so we're working with restore Belize, we want to look at intervention, we also want to spur people on the ground. Unfortunately I'm extremely busy; I'm in Trinidad, I'm in Jamaica, I'm in Europe doing stuff but I will do everything to come back here as often as possible to help people on the ground establish community cells, whatever they want to do to reach young people. Even though the study is about young boys, it's also about young girls because there's a relationship; boys are interested in girls and girls and interested in boys. That is how the specie goes on. So whatever is done to help curb the violence, I will be able to assist and I will actually come and help if I can."

Channel 5