BELIZE POLICE FORCE IMPROVE! - UDP Report card raised to 25%

BELIZE NATIONAL POLITICAL CONTROLLED POLICE FORCE UPGRADES FORENSIC CAPABILITY.

Since Colonial times, for more than 55 years, the National Police Force at the beck and call of the political party in power, has used beatings and thuggery, to extract confessions from suspected perpetrators. A bit of torture, thrown into the mix when you get sadistic police types involved.

It seems Forensic detection capability might improve?

In the past seven years or so, court cases and judges have become more active and concerned. It is normal nowadays, for the police and Public Prosecutor to see cases thrown out of court, particularly for murder. Even though the National political police may often be right, the court is recognizing that without forensic evidence, that a case of prosecution for any crime, based soley on a signed confession, when the origins are dubious, when the defendants claim to having been beaten and tortured into signing such a confession, and such single evidence is not enough, without corroborating evidence. It is tragic, but most murderers now get off free, cases dismissed as because of the years needed to come to trial, the witnesses are no longer willing to give their evidence. Old signed witness statements notwithstanding, taken at the time of the murder, the time delay gives the murderer and family enough time to threaten them, or kill the witnesses. We in Belize are about at the level of the Chicago Police in the mid 1920´s.
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The Belize Police Department has received automated fingerprinting identification system. Love News spoke with public relations officer for the Ministry of Police and Public Safety, Raphael Martinez.

Raphael Martinez – Public Relations Officer, Ministry of Police and Public Safety

“Several months ago courtesy of the Central American Regional Security Initiative, CARSI and the United States Government, Belize received six electronic fingerprinting scanning units. A unit will be assigned to the Police Station in each district and this will allow for the convenient taking of fingerprints in each district. Scenes of crimes and the Police Officer from each district have been trained in the use of this equipment. The Department has over 60,000 fingerprints which were taken manually over the past 14 years and these needed to be inputted into the database to facilitate quick comparative analysis. As part of this contract the company that supplied the equipment AFIX Technologies has sent four employees to Belize to assist the Police Department in inputting those 60,000 fingerprints this is through the use of high speed scanners and archiving system. What would take us about eight years to do, this company has done in about two to three weeks time."
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credit to the Political party in power now, the UDP for this improvement.

1 point added to their approval rating report card. NOW A SCORE OF 25%