rishard.khan@guardian.co.tt
Calls for the return of the hangman have increased following the recent spike in violent crimes but two stakeholders warn that enforcing the death penalty will not solve that problem. Instead, president of the Criminal Bar Association Israel Khan and executive director of the Caribbean Centre for Human Rights Denise Pitcher recommend reform of the criminal justice system.
T&T’s murder toll stood at 164 as of yesterday morning, higher than the 141 murders recorded for the same period last year.
Pitcher said there isn’t any evidence globally that the threat of death deters criminals. Instead, it’s the threat of guaranteed swift justice that will do the trick.
“That is what will really be an effective way to deal with crime in Trinidad and Tobago—a more efficient and effective criminal justice system because right now, based on the delays and the lengthy wait on remand, the persons that are committing crime know they are not going to face any punishment any time soon (there will be) multiple adjournments,” she said.
“All of these things contribute to the fact that there is no certainty of punishment any time soon.”
Khan said the death penalty will do little to dissuade “professional murderers” and could make the situation worse.
“What will happen is that once you have the death penalty hanging over the murderers, there were key witnesses who would have witnessed the commission of that murder, they would kill them. They would know once they are charged and convicted they would be executed so there are two sides of the coin in relation to that,” he said.
Khan said swift convictions are key to dispelling the perception that the criminal elements can get away with their heinous deeds.
“First of all the criminals believe they would not be caught and when they are caught they know they will not be prosecuted within a reasonable time and they can remain in jail and they will remain in jail and call hits from inside the jail,” he said.
“They have to set up a system that could expedite matters. They should have better plea bargaining. They should have more judges first of all… and most of all, the full complement of the Director of Public Prosecution’s professional staff to prosecute.
“You can’t have all these judges and all these courts and you have nobody to prosecute. Also, if they have first, second and third-degree murders, people would get the impression that once they serve their term of imprisonment and they are rehabilitated they could get back to society. We should have a parole board, we don’t have that in Trinidad, where people can come out and if they commit crimes they are put back in.”
Pitcher pointed out that remand accounts for almost two-thirds of the people in prison and since there is no separation between hardened criminals and those detained for lesser crimes, prison can be a breeding ground for knowledge and skills to be transferred between inmates awaiting trial.
“Sometimes people spend…a longer time in remand that exceeds the time for the crime in some cases. It is also our inefficient and ineffective justice system that contributes to crime,” she said.
She also recommended amendments to the Constitution to allow for a mandatory time frame for an accused to go before the courts.
Khan suggested that in the short term there should be joint police-army patrols in crime hotspots. He said the presence of highly trained officers would signal to criminals that if they commit offences and opt to engage in a shoot-out with law enforcement “more or less they would be killed because the police will shoot in self-defence.”
Calls to Attorney General Reginald Armour for comment on the matter went unanswered.
