Guatemala Seeks to Reduce Violence Rates with a Graduation of 1,600 Police Officers

Guatemala City, 15 Mar Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei participated on Tuesday in the graduation of more than 1,600 new officers of the National Civil Police, as part of his Government's strategy to reduce homicide and insecurity in the Central American country. During the graduation ceremony held at the police academy in northern Guatemala City, the president acknowledged that the Central American country “has security problems like everyone else.” Giammattei specified in her speech that 401 women and 1,205 men graduated as new members of the National Civil Police, who will have the responsibility of caring for the population. Before graduation, Giammattei stressed, the agents went through a training and training process that lasts about six months, to ensure the safety of the 18 million people who live in Guatemalan territory. For his part, the Minister of the Interior (Interior), David Napoleon Barrientos, said that these new police officers are in addition to the 1,500 who graduated during 2021, reaching 62.3 percent of the established police graduation goal for the four years of this Government. In total, according to official figures, the Guatemalan National Civil Police has about 42,000 members in the country's 22 departments. The official said that with the graduation of new agents, what is sought is to reduce the homicide rate in the Central American country, which according to Barrientos, closed last year at 16.6 fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants. The goal of the Giammattei administration, according to the minister, is to reduce the homicide rate to 8 per 100,000 Guatemalans. Although Barrientos claims that the murders fell, a report by the Muto Support Group (GAM), released on Tuesday, points out that the homicide rate in Guatemala is 28 per 100,000 inhabitants. Guatemala is one of the 20 most violent countries in the world according to the most recent accounts of international organizations, with 4,078 murders recorded in 2022, 16.5 percent more than the 3,500 crimes recorded in 2020. CHIEF gold/jrh