Dear Editor,
“What sort of society imprisons mothers for marijuana?” the Stabroek News editorial of August 10 asked. These kinds of headlines I find hard to pass up; like a magnet I’m drawn to them. I doubt if there are many people around who after reading that viewpoint wouldn’t become upset. Definitely some of our correctional methods are counterproductive. This editorial highlighted the predicament of three women offenders: Sojo Nedd, 24, a mother of four sentenced to four years and fined $320,000 – four times the value of the 400g of marijuana she had in possession when she was caught – said she was doing a “lil hustle”; Viola Sammy, who after admitting to having 6g of marijuana and being sentenced to three years and fined $30,000, begged the Magistrate for leniency. Sammy has five children, the eldest thirteen years old, and was released from prison only four months ago. Dianna Ross was sent to prison for four years and fined $207,400 for having in her possession marijuana. She told the magistrate, “Meh hand dey lil tight so I had to do something to geh lil money.”
Understand Editor, imprisonment in circumstances such as these can sometimes have far-reaching effects far more devastating than the act for which the defendant was penalized. There are some magistrates and other members of the legal profession it appears, who are divorced from the daily drudgeries of everyday people. People’s predicament and impecunious condition tend to make them reckless, desperate and given to taking chances. The state, as we were informed by the editorial, spends some $250,000 per year on a female inmate. Had any one of these three women gone to the relevant authorities for assistance, say $100,000 soft loan to do a ‘lil hustle’ or ‘ketch deh hand’ they would have been rejected, I know this; the system has it worked out to give generously to those not in need, like the policy of banks towards borrowers – to use Bob Hope’s joke – which lend where there is proof that the borrowers don’t need the money. Editor, I learnt a long time ago that laws are good only in so far as we make progress under them, therefore the dispenser of justice must be mindful about the impact of his/her decision and whether it serves the best interest of society.
Why is it that magistrates are often not curious about how a defendant exists and whether s/he has a family to provide for, the children attending school, etc? It is it so hard for them to discern that those very children who are left to fend for themselves are the very ones we help to fashion, and then reject when confronted with the ‘fruits’ of their wretched lives?
This is what underscores the notion that laws benefit the rich. It is so sad that top level employees who are paid well become so numb and insensitive to the plight of the below minimum-wage workers, then wonder why things are the way they are, when nothing happens in a vacuum or in total isolation.
Editor, I am not in any way endorsing drug-dealing or any sort of crime, and yes, I do agree that there are some who ought to remain behind bars permanently, but still, aren’t there equally many other dreadful happenings going on? By the way, I know of a female worker who worked for twenty-one long years with Guysuco and due to a simple, reckless decision – nothing foul –was denied any benefit whatsoever. I tried to help her by getting the matter attended to, but for three years till now there has been nothing positive. This woman is single and in dire need, can this be fair? But who cares? She is forced to ‘ketch her hand’ or do a ‘lil hustle’ in whichever way she can. In a letter I penned some time back under the heading ‘Justice should be tempered with mercy,’ I asked whether we had laws to pay attention to mothers/children who are left uncared for when the sole breadwinner is incarcerated. Why isn’t there a sense of outrage from those purporting to be the custodians of the conscience of society – judges and magistrates?
Society expects those who are responsible for dispensing justice to be rational and humane. One cannot blindly apply a law to any situation regardless. I contend that laws are not always right. I ask, what are high fines and three/four years in jail on the three women above going to achieve? These offenders are not dangerous criminals but rather tragic victims of circumstances. And this is precisely why I view the existing system as designed to keep members of the lower class, the ordinary man in perpetual poverty.
Editor, which member of the judicial system can deny your sound analytical conclusion that “Their sentences are more likely to aggravate the women and their children’s living conditions and exacerbate their predicament… This will trigger a vicious cycle that provokes more social problems than it will improve public safety. A much higher price is paid in the children’s education and upbringing during their mother’s incarceration and in the shattered families which result.”
I venture here to appeal to members of the judicial fraternity once more to each get a laminated copy of Bibi Saffie Bacchus’ poem Foodless Children and keep it up front on their desks: “Why have you no food to eat? Why do you beg/why is your skin like paper… You will be dead soon.”
Yours faithfully,
Frank Fyffe
