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CARIBBEAN
Amid Increased Murders, Calls for Hanging
By Peter Ischyrion
PORT OF SPAIN, Feb 15, 2007 (IPS) - Wendell Bowen was blunt: "I support
hangings, something needs to be done with crime." She was speaking to the
Trinidadian newspaper Newsday, which carried out a recent snap poll on
what was worrying its readers most of all.
Her bluntness may have been a result of the brutal slaying of a woman
police officer and members of her family, as well as an elderly couple in
two separate incidents in Trinidad during the first weeks of the year.
Pastor Ethelbert Charles of the Pentecostal Church was even more
forthright. At the funeral for the police officer, Elizabeth Sutherland,
her husband and daughter, he told the grieving congregation, "Every
murderer must be hanged."
"Death row must be emptied out," he said to loud applause.
There are currently 84 prisoners on Trinidad's death row, including six
women.
Trinidad's business community is more diplomatic, but no less concerned
about the crime wave which they see as scaring off local and foreign
investors.
The Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce is currently
calling on all political parties facing the elections later this year to
present their agendas for dealing with the murders and other criminal
activities in the country.
The last execution in the region was in 1999 when Trinidad hanged nine
members of a drug gang convicted of the murder of a family in
Williamsville, south of Port of Spain.
Many, including Caribbean governments, have blamed the London-based Privy
Council for indirectly contributing to the murders. This body still
remains the highest court for all but two regional states.
The Privy Council is not just seen by many as a leftover from the colonial
era, but a hindrance to executions in the region. Its recent rulings have
made it difficult to carry out executions, in particular its decision that
it was inhumane to hang anyone who has been on death row for more than
five years.
The twin island state of Trinidad and Tobago is not the only Caribbean
state where people are today loudly calling on the authorities to
implement the death penalty as an answer to an upsurge in violent crime.
In Jamaica, some religious leaders have been calling for speedy execution
of convicted murderers. There are 40 people currently on Jamaica's death
row
"I believe the justice system must ensure that all trials are just and
fair, but when we have persons who continue to murder people, I believe we
ought to take a second look at our reluctance in dealing with capital
punishment," Pastor Glen Samuels, president of the West Jamaica Conference
of Seventh Day Adventist Churches, said at an international conference on
"Restorative Justice" last December.
Repeat murderers must also be prepared to pay for their crimes with their
own lives, he said.
Prominent Jamaican lawyer Clayton Morgan told the conference that as far
as he was aware, politicians had provided the public with no convincing
reason for the current halt in hangings.
"Hanging is perfectly lawful. The death sentence is still legal. There is
absolutely nothing in the world that is preventing hanging. There are
several men on death row who could be hanged tomorrow because they have
lost all their appeals," he said.
Jamaica's opposition Labour Party has in the past weeks raised new alarm
over the rise in violent crime. Public confidence in the security forces
was eroding, it said in a February statement.
The last six years have been among the bloodiest in Jamaica's history.
There have been more than 7,000 killings. Last year, 1,674 Jamaicans were
murdered, giving the island a ratio of 63 murders for every 100,000
people - one of the highest in the world. In the first six weeks of the
year, 130 murders were registered.
Political analyst Kevin O'Brien Chang believes crime is now at the top of
the political agenda and will be the dominating issue in Jamaica's coming
election. Voters were so concerned at the failure of politicians to deal
with the issue that they could bring down the current government.
"Every poll shows crime is the biggest problem the country is facing and
with the explosion we have seen so far in January, it is more critical,"
he said.
Despite the ever-more strident calls for a resumption of hangings, there
are still moderate voices arguing that this is not the answer to the
region's crime problem.
Roman Catholic priest, Father Reginald Hezekiah, officiating at the
funeral of the two elderly people bludgeoned to death by intruders in
Trinidad in the new year, said a return to the use of capital punishment
would not bring back those killed.
"We have to have a culture of life and not of death," he told the
mourners. "We cannot say hang them. When we do that, we become like
murderers ourselves and we think like them."
The Trinidad and Tobago Humanist Association has also vocally denounced
pressure to resume executions. Rather than solving the country's crime
problem, it might worsen it, the association said in a recent statement.
"It is understandable that the latest callous and bold murders would cause
many citizens to call for hangings of convicted murderers," it said. But
after the last hangings in 1999, there was a two percent increase in the
murder rate the following year.
It warned that the real danger in "shouting for executions" was that it
allowed politicians to pretend they were tough on crime.
Human rights organisations are concerned that the current public mood on
crime could lead to violations in human rights. The police could turn to
"aggressive extrajudicial justice" to placate the "frustrations, grief and
outrage" of the people, social scientist Selwyn Ryan warned on Feb. 11.
"This is a road we must not take," he said.
Concern has increased following a Feb. 2 police shootout in Trinidad
leaving four people dead.
Immediately afterwards, police commissioner Trevor Paul responded to
criticism by strenuously denying the existence of a "death squad" within
his service.
Criminologist Ramesh Deosaran warns that Trinidad and Jamaica must deal
more effectively with crime or public frustration will be expressed in
ever-more vehement calls for extreme measures.
"The more things are not done to address crime, the more you will have
people calling for drastic action and making statements like 'hang them
high'," he said.
(END)
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