Crippling crime bills
Dear Editor,
The six anti-crime bills could be as ineffective as using a paper hammer to bring down a steel and concrete wall. It may be wiser to take time and thought in order to choose the best tools for the job. These bills may well add to the difficulties of our institutions – police, courts, prosecutors, lock-ups, and prisons – in addressing crime.
The police at present lack the numbers, vehicles, and the support systems to succeed in reducing crime. Calls to 119 may therefore go unanswered; investigators may arrive at a crime scene hours or days late; and prisoners may miss court dates. As a result, innocent persons can be punished while offenders are about 90 per cent certain of not being caught. Jamaica has had almost 7,000 unsolved murders over the past six years.
Reports continue to describe conditions in Jamaican lockups and prisons as overcrowded and insanitary. The Tower Street prison facility houses about 1,600 prison inmates, though it was built for 600 inmates.
Judges as well as prosecutors face challenges in clearing the backlog. As a result, about 400,000 persons have been waiting (some for close to a decade), for their cases to be heard in the courts.
If these anti-crime bills are passed, already overwhelmed justice and security services will face the task of finding:
Space in lockups to house persons detained for 72 hours (rather than 24), and for up to 60 days (rather than on being charged) before a judge could decide on bail.
Transportation and security for persons to attend court after seven days and then every 14 days during the 60-day detention period.
Judges, prosecutors, court staff and courtrooms for hearings to review detainees’ cases up to four times during the 60-day detention period; to decide on applications of bail brought by accused persons (rather than by the prosecution); to hear bail appeals from defence or prosecution; and to decide on legal and constitutional challenges, perhaps as far as the Privy Council, if these bills become law.
Space in prisons to house inmates who would have to remain for 10 years (rather than seven years at present), without chance of parole.
These crime bills seem likely to further cripple our struggling institutions without making the country safer. The police already have powers to cordon, search, seize, and detain. Judges already exercise discretion in extending detention or withholding bail. What seems missing is not new laws, but the will to enable institutions to implement existing laws.
Yvonne McCalla Sobers
sobersy@yahoo.com