Law, order focus backed to bolster job opportunities

Investing in improving law and order is vital to driving investor confidence in developing and creating more job opportunities for locals, an official says.
Department of Justice and Attorney-General’s crime prevention and restorative justice executive director Zachary Sitban said economic interventions to reduce poverty and increase livelihood standards were necessary to empower youths to deal with crime.
Sitban said that as part of their community obligation, the department was focusing on crime prevention initiatives by working with civil society organisations and other partners to deliver services needed by the people.
The crime prevention programmes and projects target youth offenders, the unemployed and school dropouts who had been involved in criminal or anti-social behaviours.
“As part of the intervention, our site coordinator of Morata, Rural Urban Foundation (in the National Capital District), in partnership with Pacific Media Solutions, trained 36 of our youths on film production and has developed scripts for eight short films and a 90-minute movie called Blood Revenge,” Sitban said.
“These youths have also developed a documentary on the impact of a chicken project in Morata and Erima settlements.”
Speaking during the Consultative Implementation and Monitoring Council law and order sectorial committee meeting last week, Sitban said that as of last month, there had been 883 youths in 32 project sites around the country.
Of these, 11 project sites are in Port Moresby’s Morata suburb and others are in East Sepik, Madang, Western Highlands, Enga and Jiwaka.
Sitban said the current economic intervention in engaging youths in a poultry project was a more practical approach in keeping them occupied and away from committing crime.