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The good news is that - If you subtract petty crimes, Belize has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world. As of August of 2024, the rate stands at 24% with adjustments reducing it to 15%, according to a study done by a Galen Professor. Today he presented his findings at the Central prison. Jomarie Lanza was there and here's her report.

Dr Terrence Alladin, a criminal justice professor at Galen University presented his findings after a 5 year research study on Recidivism rates in Belize at the Belize Central Prison this morning. His Research titled "Empathy and Recidivism- Measuring Reincarceration At The Belize Central Prison" explores how factors like age, race and other variables lead to reincarceration, by analyzing data from the period of 2019 to 2021. He further explained.

Dr. Terrence Alladin, Criminal Justice Galen University
"Belize is a unique prison in that it is a prison and detention center and a jail all in one and that is very rare in the world therefore it presents a unique case study for my research. Basically the data I got from Mr Murillo was pretty robust in that it presented information I could not get any place else and that's why Belize presents such a unique environment."

"What u found is that Belize has a pretty low recidivism rate and that is I would think is fantastic if we take out the minor crimes or what I call crimes like riding a bicycle in The street, minor traffic violations Belize has a recidivism of approximately 16% which is unheard of in what we call a poor country so I think what this says is that we can learn like in other countries like the United States can actually learn from Belize in that look at the strategies they are using look at the environment they are using to reduce their recidivism rate and actually apply it we can make small minor changes in every environment because what works in Belize may not work in United States but we can make certain minor changes to make it work."

The research takes a look at 250+ offenders and 45 staff members by way of survey. The CEO at the prison says the research makes it easier to get this information out to the public for them to analyze for themselves.

Virgilio Murillo, CEO, Belize Central Prison
"I thought that there was a need to scientifically prove the good work that the Kolbe Foundation is doing in terms of lowering recidivism for the country of Belize as it relates to imprisonment we have to make that very clear. Back in 1998 recidivism was at a very high of 70% and today like Dr Aladdin said it's around 26% but if you were to remove all of those petty offense that is woke are coming to prison for it would literally put it at around 16% in reality and I thought that was very important to highlight to the country at least to let us feel good that we are doing something good for the country of Belize. I always track my numbers and I always felt that we were low but I could not have done it scientifically but Dr Aladdin has the skills and the expertise and now he has proven it."

Today's presentation also included MSW Program Coordinator Dr Kristcha DeGuerre who shared her knowledge on restorative justice and how it connects to her research on girls in gangs in Belize.

Dr Kristcha DeGuerre, MSW Program Coordinator, Galen
"I spoke about Restorative Justice and the need for restorative justice in Belize but also incorporated my recent research talking sweet and moving quiet which looked at gang involved girls and their mental health and trauma associated with their experiences."

"Some of the key points of my research were the drivers for gang involvement in girls in Belize which significantly pointed to traumatic experiences early in childhood and I came here to talk today about restorative justice and how that has the potential to heal girls from experiences preventing gang involvement so not trying to get the girls out of the gang but trying to reach down to those root causes and heal it before it becomes a problem."

Though Alladin's work proves the prison's recidivism rates are far better compared to other countries, Murillo says that at times the reason why they have so many repeated offenders is because they are not spending enough time in prison to fully rehabilitate.

Virgilio Murillo, CEO, Belize Central Prison
"I personally believe that when it comes to repeat offenders I've been saying this time and time again that you need to intensify the imprisonment, the length of imprisonment for them. What I noticed in my data is that we have a quite a number of repeat offenders that makes it to the prison sometimes three times for the year. Sometimes as much as 4 times for the year and that is because they are being given very small sentences like 2 months and three months they hardly get a 1 year sentence. And they are committing crimes like theft and in some cases petty crimes of dishonesty or drug possession crime. Well not possession but using crack which is automatic drug trafficking."

"What the research shows is that you have to intensify the programming for that person in other words while I may be able to put a first time offender through a three month program and he might get his act together that guy who has come here 20 or 30 times before he needs nothing less than a year worth of programming for him to make a little change so I do need time with these guys and I think some of the magistrates from the lower courts would just need to do a little background check on these guys to see what is their history and increase on their sentence and give them the maximum that the law gives them the power to issue rather than the minimum."