It's an is­sue that has sparked na­tion­wide de­bate. While the ju­ry is still out on whether cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment leads to a sig­nif­i­cant de­crease in crime, civ­il rights' ad­vo­cates have ar­gued the re­sump­tion of hang­ings is not a de­ter­rent. On­ly re­cent­ly, the much-de­bat­ed is­sue saw Cab­i­net min­is­ters-Child De­vel­op­ment, Youth and Gen­der Af­fairs Min­is­ter Ver­na St Rose-Greaves and Min­is­ter of Works Jack Warn­er-cross swords on this mat­ter.

And, while the Op­po­si­tion has failed to sup­port the Cap­i­tal Of­fences Bill, af­ter the Gov­ern­ment re­fused to re­draft the leg­is­la­tion, a sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of cit­i­zens sup­port the re­turn of the hang­man's noose. This ac­cord­ing to a re­cent na­tion­wide sur­vey con­duct­ed by the ANSA McAL Psy­cho­log­i­cal Re­search Cen­tre, Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine.

Su­per­vised by se­nior lec­tur­er Dr Derek Chadee, the poll was con­duct­ed dur­ing the pe­ri­od April 13 to 16, 2012. A ran­dom sam­ple of 512 re­spon­dents, com­pris­ing per­sons 18 years and over, with 39 per cent Afro-Trinida­di­ans, 42 per cent In­do-Trinida­di­ans, 17 per cent Mixed per­sons and two per cent Oth­er groups. The sam­ple con­sist­ed of 52 per cent males.

Re­spon­dents were se­lect­ed us­ing the Ran­dom Dig­it Di­alling Method. Ques­tioned on whether they were in sup­port of the re­sump­tion of hang­ings for peo­ple con­vict­ed of mur­der in T&T, ap­prox­i­mate­ly three quar­ters (73 per cent) of re­spon­dents in­di­cat­ed their sup­port. Specif­i­cal­ly, 39 per cent said "strong­ly sup­port," 34 per cent "sup­port," 11 per cent "lit­tle sup­port" and 16 per cent "don't sup­port."

For the analy­sis that fol­lows, "strong­ly sup­port" and "sup­port" were re-cod­ed in­to a sin­gle cat­e­go­ry, and "lit­tle sup­port" and "don't sup­port" were al­so placed in­to a sin­gle cat­e­go­ry. Analysing re­spons­es by eth­nic­i­ty showed that In­do-Trinida­di­ans were more like­ly to "sup­port" the re­sump­tion of hang­ings for per­sons con­vict­ed of mur­der.

Specif­i­cal­ly, 83 per cent In­do-Trinida­di­ans, 69 per cent Mixed and 64 per cent Afro-Trinida­di­ans said "sup­port". Afro-Trinida­di­ans (36 per cent) and Mixed per­sons (31 per cent) were more like­ly than In­do-Trinida­di­ans (17 per cent) to in­di­cate they "don't sup­port".

With re­gard to sex, mar­gin­al dif­fer­ences were ob­served. Pre­cise­ly, 75 per cent males and 71 per cent fe­males said "sup­port", while 29 per cent fe­males and 25 per cent males said they "don't sup­port" the re­sump­tion of hang­ings for peo­ple con­vict­ed of mur­der.

Ex­plor­ing re­spons­es by age showed that peo­ple in the 41-50 age group were more like­ly to "sup­port" the re­sump­tion of hang­ings com­pared with peo­ple in the 18-30 age group. Specif­i­cal­ly, 69 per cent of the 18-30, 75 per cent 31-40, 78 per cent 41-50 and 73 per cent 51-plus stat­ed "sup­port".

Peo­ple in­di­cat­ing "don't sup­port" were 31 per cent of the 18-30, 25 per cent 31-40, 22 per cent 41-50 and 27 per cent 51-plus age group. With re­gards to re­li­gion, Mus­lim re­spon­dents were most like­ly to in­di­cate that they "sup­port" the re­sump­tion of hang­ings for per­sons con­vict­ed of mur­der, with 94 per cent Mus­lims, 86 per cent Hin­dus, 70 per cent Oth­er Chris­t­ian groups, and 64 per cent Ro­man Catholics stat­ing "sup­port" in re­sponse to this ques­tion.

Chris­t­ian groups were more like­ly to state they "don't sup­port" the re­sump­tion of hang­ings for per­sons con­vict­ed of mur­der when com­pared with non-Chris­t­ian groups. In par­tic­u­lar, 36 per cent Ro­man Catholic, 30 per cent Oth­er Chris­t­ian groups, 14 per cent Hin­dus and six per cent Mus­lims gave this re­sponse.

Analysing re­spons­es by ed­u­ca­tion showed that pri­ma­ry-ed­u­cat­ed per­sons were more like­ly than tech­ni­cal/vo­ca­tion­al-ed­u­cat­ed per­sons to in­di­cate they "sup­port" the re­sump­tion of hang­ings for per­sons con­vict­ed of mur­der-a 16 per cent dif­fer­ence.

Specif­i­cal­ly, 80 per cent pri­ma­ry, 76 per cent sec­ondary, 67 per cent ter­tiary, and 64 per cent tech­ni­cal/vo­ca­tion­al-ed­u­cat­ed per­sons said "sup­port". Per­sons in­di­cat­ing "don't sup­port" were 36 per cent tech­ni­cal/vo­ca­tion­al, 33 per cent ter­tiary, 24 per cent sec­ondary and 20 per cent pri­ma­ry-ed­u­cat­ed peo­ple.

Rat­ings

Do you sup­port the re­sump­tion of hang­ings for per­sons con­vict­ed of mur­der in Trinidad and To­ba­go?

Don't sup­port 16%

Lit­tle sup­port 11%

Sup­port 34%

Strong­ly sup­port 39%

Rat­ings

Do you sup­port the re­sump­tion of hang­ings for per­sons con­vict­ed of mur­der in Trinidad and To­ba­go? (by re­li­gion)

Ro­man Catholic Hin­du Mus­lim Oth­er

Don't/lit­tle sup­port 36% 14% 6% 30%

Sup­port/strong­ly 64% 86% 94% 70%

sup­port