And to do more, the COMPOL is instituting a youth curfew for the city with almost immediate effect. Effective tomorrow at 6:00, no one under the age of 18 can be on the street after 6:00 pm. Sounds severe, but the COMPOL is clearly under pressure - and speaking fo the parents of gang members - he asked bluntly: "who raised these monsters?"
Chester Williams, Commissioner of Police
"And instead of blaming the police, we need`to begin to look at those persons who raised these monsters and unleashed them on the streets. There needs to be stricter rules when it comes to parenting. I want to say here that I will give instructions to the officer commanding Belize City or Belize District to re-institute the curfew. This time we are not going after the children, we are going after the parents. So once the child is found on the street after hours, we are going to take the child home and we will bring the parent and the parent will face the music. It is time that parents begin to take responsibilities for the children that they have brought on this earth and until we can do that, we will not see a reduction in our crime problem."
"The declaration of curfew regulation is for Belize City, not region 1 or region 2. It will be for the entire Belize City and I will propose to the minister of human development to increase the age from 16 to 18. If you look at some of the crimes that occurred recently, children are involved. We have to change that. We cannot have our children on our streets late at night getting caught up in criminal activities. So I want to sound the warning to parents who want to have their child out on the streets late at night and care nothing about the child wellbeing, that we will come for you. So parents please ensure your child is at home by 6pm."
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