EXCERPTS- ADDRESS BY RT. HON. SAID MUSA AT THE INTERNATIONAL CRIME SUMMIT, November 12 2007

Without doubt crime, and violent crime in particular, is one of the most troubling and pressing problems in our world. Crime and violence threaten the welfare of citizens everywhere. Beyond the effect on victims, crime generates a climate of fear and diminishes the nation’s growth and development.

But the function of the police is by no means limited to the catching of criminals. Direct prevention of crime by encouraging citizens to be pro-active with neighbourhood crime watch associations and even more valuable prevention by community policing by encouraging other groups to reveal crime.

This programme works when the police is and is perceived to be on the side of the citizens – where there is mutual respect and trust.

Many studies have dealt with the root causes of crime. There is no “magic bullet” solution. The factors contributing to crime are complex. Many of the children who became persistent young offenders grow up in dysfunctional homes. Although many of them have “parents” this does not mean that they are “parented”.

The deeper problem is that as a society we have more and more in this modern technological era become disconnected from friends, family, neighbours and social structures be it sports clubs, churches or parent teacher associations. This is what the social scientist call the decline in social capital.  This decline is most significant in its impact upon the lives of people in the hardest-pressed urban areas.

Poverty and unemployment cannot be an excuse for crime. But to deny a causal link would be to stick our heads in the sand.

Our Government has targeted the reduction of poverty and unemployment as major objectives in our work of development.

The substantial investment we have made in education, health care, housing and other social and economic infrastructure; rural water systems, expansion of electricity roads and bridges, as well as stimulating and promoting wealth creating enterprises have gone a long way in raising standards of living.

Yet the increase in crime still persists in a cyclical fashion. 

In the past two decades Youth crime and violence have become our biggest concern.

We are no longer dealing just with the disorganized crimes of petty stealing and weed smoking or just crimes of passion.

The big concern today is the organized well financed drug trade and the accompanying proliferation of firearms leading to an increase in crimes of violence including murder.

Our region is caught in the middle – the transshipment point for cocaine moving from the South where it is grown and produced to its primary consumers markets in the North. We are literally being caught in the crossfire of this big international drug trafficking business. Young people – the ones who fall prey to crack cocaine have become pawns in this big money poisonous trade.

From money-laundering to street crimes and the so-called gang warfare between rival gangs, all are the influences of drugs moving through our region. This alluring trade brings quick cash to an underclass of unskilled, high risk youths who become tools in a trade that requires violence to control one’s turf. Many of our youths have been killed in this mindless callous drug trafficking business.

Our prison system is disproportionately filled either with victims of drugs or perpetrators of drug related offences.

If we rely on prisons to reduce the crime rate whom do we decide to lockup? The majority of prisoners are male and well under 30. They are young men who have failed at school or have been failed by school.  They have weak family links.

If we warehouse them and simply ensure that they live in custody in harsh and unsanitary conditions, are we going to deter this majority from crime when their time is up. Or would this treatment cause them irrevocably to lose their self-respect and drive them further into lives of crime and punishment?

What they need instead is tough love. Which is exactly what the Kolbe Foundation is working on.  As their aim clearly declares: To provide a secure, humane facility, geared towards a meaningful rehabilitation.

Revolutionary prison reform is taking place here at the Central Prison.

Prisoners are receiving skills training and the moral education many do not have in their lives before entering the prison. They are learning to address their offending behaviour. In short they are learning the difference between right and wrong and they are learning the practice of hard work.

The system is not perfect but it is 100 times better than what we had before.

We seek to build a new social order in which there is respect for both rights and responsibilities.

Only so can we achieve safe and secure communities where individual responsibility, strong families and good governance practices will ensure a Belize growing in economic prosperity with freedom and justice for all.