As to the issue of violent crimes across the region, ComPol Williams says Belize is at the bottom of the list for 2022. According to the commissioner, countries in the Caribbean that were trailing Belize in violent crimes are now ahead, while some of the more violent Caribbean states are now logging record and close to record numbers. He gave us his view on what has changed in Belize.

Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police

"I am happy to see that in the past. One is that crime within the Caribbean region is to be Jamaica. Trinidad believes we were always at 3 in terms of the violent crimes. But this year I can see that Belize is down compared to Bahamas, and Bahamas do have a smaller landmass and believes it has a smaller population and beliefs. And the police force of Bahamas is almost two times the size of the police department. And Despite that, at this present moment Bahamas have our most 130 murders at this point compared to us I think we're at. So we're doing fairly good in terms of dealing with the violent crimes and I want to thank the whole issue in terms of the multi sectoral approach and the fact that we have been able to look more at deploying or people based on intelligence into the different gang ridden areas. We have been charging persons under the gun law. So all of those things are factors that are leading to the reduction in i murders. But we're not going to sing our praises as yet because there certainly is a lot more to be done. Just today I spoke with the Minister and I spoke also to the to the Deputy Prime Minister to see how we can create the other layer because we have the LIU and the multi sectoral push, but we also need to have the cabinet where the ministers with responsibility of the different agencies that are part of the multi-sectoral approach to appoint a liaison person from their ministry who is going to be able to look at what is needed on the grounds and then get back to the Minister and see how they can provide it."

Channel 5