- The stiffer penalty temptation
Our country is growing progressively deranged. The social glue that held it together is gradually eroding. Stabilising institutions like schools, churches, villages, and families are fast losing influence. As a result, a sizable portion of our young has become estranged from society. Many of them turn to anti-social activity, including drugs and crime, in their search for purpose in life and its growing issues.
CARICOM leaders gathered in Trinidad last April for a historic symposium titled “Violence as a Public Health Issue.” The meeting underlined the public health threat posed by rising violence. In his welcome statement, Prime Minister Rowley stated that violence in the Caribbean is a public health emergency that endangers our lives, economies, national security, and, by extension, all aspects of our well-being.
From the Bahamas and Jamaica in the north to Guyana and Suriname in the south, all regional leaders issued identical warnings. We couldn’t be more in agreement. We certainly have a situation that requires immediate attention. While many leaders were adept at diagnosing problems and assigning blame, the symposium fell miserably short on solutions. The leaders blamed everyone except themselves for the rising crime rate.
“Too many of our judges and magistrates are too soft,” Gonsalves said at the time. When sentencing guilty offenders, judges and magistrates have been accused of preferring specific counsel. Lawyers’ organisations were understandably outraged in the aftermath of these utterances. The OECS Bar Association said in a statement: “Instead of focusing on the real issues impacting crime such as lack of investment in youth, the family, education, the judicial system, the police, and the crown prosecution service, some leaders preferred playing the blame game, blaming everyone but themselves.”
In a get tough, law-and-order press briefing last week, Gonsalves was long on ways to deal with crime but short on answers to the increasing incidences of crime, particularly killings and other violent crime.
He proposed amending the legislation to allow police to imprison criminal suspects for longer periods of time. That time is now 48 hours. There is no evidence that lengthier detention would help with criminal detection or resolution. Persons are currently detained and locked away for 48 hours. Many are released without ever being questioned by their detention officers. Others are not even informed of the reason for their incarceration. There is now abuse. A longer imprisonment duration will result in even greater abuse with no discernible impact on crime.
Gonsalves suggests eliminating preliminary inquiry (PI) and replacing it with a sufficient hearing in which the magistrate determines who proceeds to trial, a method known as paper committal. To tell the truth, this will not fix the situation. The majority of PIs are completed within the first year of incarceration. However, accused people spend an average of three or four years on remand before being tried. Families, on the other hand, may save money if preliminary inquiries are avoided. As things are today, many families raise funds for the PI but are unable to support their loved ones throughout the trial. Because there is no legal aid in SVG except for murder trials, if the PI is repealed, many more people will be able to go to trial with legal representation.
Increased punishments for sex and gun offences are political responses to crime rather than attempts to solve or address the core causes of crime. The authorities believe that those who are becoming increasingly concerned would regard “the get-tough policies” as progress. It is, alas, incorrect.
Young males convicted of murder receive an average sentence of 35 years in prison. This enhanced penalty has had little effect on homicides or gun violence. The exact opposite is true. In the recent decade, there has been a continuous increase in gun violence that results in death. Over the last three years, SVG has shattered its homicide record, with 40, 42, and 51 deaths attributed primarily to gun violence.
Gonsalves also proposes jury-only trials for murder. To be honest, this may not be a horrible idea. While our jury system is deeply ingrained, the moment may have come to abolish or significantly reform it. The jury pool is insufficient. Some jurors may serve on up to four cases in a single year. Many are now “professionals” with more than ten trials under their belt. Jurors should also be taught the key concept of reasonable doubt. Judges may have a greater understanding of the notion due to their training and experience. Because certain judges are famously pro-prosecution, “may” is the important word here.
Crime is a blight on society. Women and children are particularly vulnerable to crime. But how do we deal with this issue? Is it our societal conventions that are to blame? We expect our women and children to be submissive? Men cannot enforce their dominance when they have the power of the purse since women are more educated, employed, and able to demonstrate their independence. How about we educate guys about the hazards of male control, misogyny, and hypersexuality?
Longer penalties for sexual offences are not a panacea for the high rate of assault and violation of our women and children. When a teen admits to kissing and sodomising a 4-year-old child with a nebulizer, the natural reaction is disgust and outrage. Is a harsher penalty the answer, or should we invest in health care to address the major mental health issues that afflict our society? There are already scores of young men warehoused in prisons who are unable to stand trial because there is no psychiatrist to assess their fitness to plead.
Do we pause to consider how many of our crimes are founded on the deep and gloomy pale of hopelessness and helplessness that suffocates the wellsprings of our young and nation? What percentage of our youth’s aberrant behaviour is motivated by frustration? What role do unemployment and a lack of prospects for progress play in the escalation of teenage crime and violence? Gonsalves is silent on these critical problems.
Gonsalves cited his “get-tough policies” on guns and sexual offences as evidence that he has a clear strategy for combating crime. If our crime problem wasn’t so serious, these statements might make you giggle. His comment last week, like his previous “tough on crime and the causes of crime” pronouncement, will be regarded as meaningless rhetoric from an experienced politician with no answers to our country’s real challenges.
Stiffer penalties will do nothing but fill up the jails.
