And like Musa said, this time, they're only going after the criminals they believe were directly involved in recent murders. Today the ComPol said only 53 people have been detained.

Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"I think in the past and if you could check your records, when it was done in the past it was just done as a broad stroke brush and everybody including working individuals from various areas of Belize City were picked up with having no sort of investigation being carried out on those individuals before picking them up so the procedure now has been rectified, investigations are done and it's more of a targeted response, the police department knows exactly who these individuals are committing these crimes and we're bringing them to justice. I think that we always have to remember that it's not a sort of black and white situation when we look at crime, we have to employ all the tools possible and I keep repeating that an SOE is in no way a solution to the crime problem but it certainly hits the pause button, it allows the police to carry out the investigation and as you will see, more and more charges specifically in relation to those murders that have been committed will be laid and again it hits a pause button on the crime."

Reporter:
"How do you answer the criticism because I know you made it before of the human rights issue of the state of emergency. People are saying that these states of emergencies go against the rights of the people who are detained."

Kareem Musa, Minister of Home Affairs
"I think we have to look at the human rights of the law abiding citizens first and foremost. These criminals whenever there is a flare up in terms of gang violence specifically and those are the individuals as you know who are targeted in an SOE. Many times, it results in the murder of a mother, in the murder of a child, they might not have been the targets but at the end of the day and I know the public always says let them just kill out each other, no we can't look at it like that because a lot of times, innocent people are killed whenever these gang flareups happen and we have to factor the human rights of those individuals first and foremost."