Released on November 2, 2026, new official disclosures from the Office of the Commissioner of Police reveal that national authorities are actively overhauling the Leadership Intervention Unit (LIU), a flagship government initiative launched to steer vulnerable, justice-involved young people away from reoffending and reinsertion into cycles of street violence. The program has operated in a state of administrative limbo for nearly six months, ever since its short-term subsidized employment component was formally terminated back in May of this year.
Against a backdrop of a sharp, widely documented surge in violent crime across multiple urban and rural communities, public concern has mounted that the months-long slowdown and partial scaling back of LIU operations eliminated a critical support lifeline for high-risk youth, directly contributing to the recent spike in violent incidents. Commissioner of Police Dr. Richard Rosado addressed these public concerns during an official press briefing, walking through the timeline of the LIU review process.
Dr. Rosado confirmed that two months prior to the formal assessment launch, the then-minister responsible for national security and the ministry’s chief executive officer met directly with the LIU’s director to notify him that a full performance audit of the unit’s suite of intervention services would be conducted after a 60-day observation window, with explicit instructions for the director to relay this notification to all LIU staff and program participants. The recently completed full assessment found that a significant share of the unit’s social support services failed to reach the intended target population of at-risk youth, and many existing community-focused interventions required targeted adjustments to boost their real-world public safety impact.
When pressed by reporters on two key public grievances – that the suspension of full LIU operations coincided directly with the rise in violent crime, and that frontline program participants were completely caught off guard by the operational changes with no advance warning – Dr. Rosado pushed back on the claim that the entire LIU program had been discontinued. He emphasized that only the temporary, time-bound employment placement scheme was ever meant to be a finite, non-permanent initiative, and all core social intervention services were mandated to continue running uninterrupted through the review period. He acknowledged that the failure to communicate upcoming changes to program participants represented a potential administrative lapse that would be formally investigated, and that the LIU’s director would be held accountable if he failed to pass along the required notifications to staff and beneficiaries.
Commissioner Rosado confirmed that after reviewing the assessment findings and holding coordinated strategy meetings with the national security minister and ministry CEO, authorities have already launched a full restructuring and refocusing process for the LIU, designed to close gaps in service delivery and ensure the program delivers on its original mandate to reduce youth involvement in violent crime.