Security minister asserts
that crime is going down
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Arias administration is pointing to a decrease in the number of 2009 murders and in fewer home invasions and car thefts as an achievement.
The statistics came Monday from Janina del Vecchio, the minister of security, who gave the annual summary in the presence of President Óscar Arias Sánchez. She has been criticized for being a political choice with little background in law enforcement.
She said the numbers came from the Judicial Investigating Organization and were based on reports from January through November. Robberies in San José were down 4.9 percent and home invasions were down 8.8 percent, she said.
Ms. del Vecchio credited among other factors the success of the Tribunales de Flagrancia that have been instituted by the Poder Judicial. Criminals caught in the acts or nearly so sometimes are tried and sentenced within hours. The Poder Judicial is trying to put the concept into effect nationwide.
The Fuerza Pública and its dependency have confiscated 92,974 kilos of cocaine since the start of the Arias administration in May 2006, the agency said.
The security ministry conducted three sweeps of Limón province in 2009 which resulted in arrests and confiscation of weapons and drugs. The ministry credits these sweeps for reducing the murders there by 23 percent.
There are 40,000 more policemen on the force now. This was a campaign promise by Arias, and the budget of the ministry has gone from 62 billion colons to 124 billion proposed for 2010, about $219 million.
In addition, the administration has raised police base wages some 25 percent.
This is the last full year of the Arias administration. He leaves office in May. He is known to be troubled by the public perception of a rising crime rate.
Child protectors report
that hotline is getting calls
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
The Patronato Nacional reported Monday that it has received 800 calls on its 147 hotline that has resulted in exchanges with 142 youngsters under age 18 in 18 communities.
The hotline is supported by the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad in conjunction with World Vision.
The Patronato, the child protection agency, said that the service is designed to let youngsters know their rights and to clear up doubts about their sexuality.
The government agency also has a Web page, also in conjunction with World Vision where youngsters are alerted to their rights.
The Patronato said that 80 percent of the hotline calls are to seek information about services such as scholarships for school children. Just 3 percent could be characterized as complaints.
New defender of people
coming from legislature
By the A.M. Costa Rica staff
Lawmakers did not have to look far for a new defender of the public. The Partido Liberación Nacional will be promoting one of its own, Ofelia Taitelbaum, for the job when a secret vote is held today.
There is opposition from other parties, in part because some lawmakers do not feel that she would be an independent actor because she is tied too closely to the Óscar Arias Sánchez administration.
The lawmakers had open nomination for the job, which is supposed to head the Defensoría do los Habitantes, sort of an ombudsman to help people enmeshed in bureaucracy. There were 25 candidates, which were evaluated on a numerical scale.
The principal opponents of the government's candidate are the Partido Acción Ciudadana and Movimiento Libertario.
No comments:
Post a Comment