For too long indifference has plagued our criminal justice system—we are criminalising substance abusers, not rehabilitating them; we are expanding our prisons, not reducing their populations; and we are dismantling gangs across the country, not rebuilding lives and communities.
The majority of our criminal perpetrators are below the age of 35, as disclosed earlier this week by Crime Chief Seelall Persaud. He confirmed what many of us already knew: our criminals are alarmingly young. We also know this: the criminals in our newspaper reports and on the nightly newscasts are youths; boys not yet old enough to vote but with criminal rap sheets; boys in their teens and early twenties who are turning to crime for different reasons but often share community connections and similar socio-economic statuses.
Just a few years ago, the image of a dishevelled 13-year-old identified only as “Nasty-man” at the time was featured in the local media. The child, a resident of Agricola, was charged along with four others with the slaying of the five Kaieteur News pressmen.
The Crime Chief also mentioned the existence of the “Hot-Skull” gang based in Albouystown and with the information provided we know many of the members are either in prison or dead. Many of them are young and like too many youths in too many of our communities they are trapped in a vicious cycle of crime and imprisonment that only ends with a violent death. Many of them are repeat offenders and after one or two court appearances they invariably find themselves in fatal confrontations with the police.
The Camp Street Prison is overcrowded and its population is seemingly getting younger and we are building new dormitories in the jail yard. Should we be funding new prison dormitories or reforming the system to reduce the prison population? One would think that we would have made a greater effort to reform the system and offer alternatives to imprisonment, especially for young offenders in conflict with the law.
Given our realities, justice has to be redefined as a process that is both flexible and understanding; a process that is cognisant of our social inequalities and the wider social implications of the current trend of creating more prison space and carrying out more executions.
It is time that we offer an alternative vision of criminal justice – a view shared and brilliantly articulated only recently by stakeholders attending consultations on National Drug Strategy Master Plan 2013 to 2017.
There is a wealth of research which suggests that imprisonment is not always the solution. If it were, there would be fewer repeat offenders. And in view of this evidence, many criminal justice systems, including some in the Caribbean, are introducing alternative sentences, such as community work, training programmes, or treatment for offenders with addiction and mental health problems, which in some instances are the source of criminal behaviour.
Some of our magistrates are frustrated regarding the lack of flexibility in the system in dealing with persons who are clearly suffering from substance abuse and other social ills. More often than not, the government services available to assist the court are inadequate and unfortunately, not integrated. This means that magistrates have to rely on private organisations like Help and Shelter and the Phoenix Project to assist with offenders who clearly would not benefit from the blunt instrument of a prison sentence.
We are operating in an environment of limited legal resources and our criminal justice system is severely burdened; from the chronic backlog of cases and other challenges facing the courts to an overtaxed police force. These issues reinforce the need for modern legislation which promotes genuine rehabilitation and strategies that challenge offenders to change their ways.
The question is: Do we have the political will to move in the direction of such reforms? Judging from four years ago, there is reason to hope.
Current Deputy Speaker Deborah Backer moved a motion in the National Assembly in May 2009 to have community service introduced as a penalty for certain offences but her party—then the PNCR-1G—did not agree with amendments proposed by the government and withdrew the motion.
However, the government did not seem opposed to the idea. Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee had moved to have the motion amended to “have a multi-sector approach, with additional skills, technical and financial resources.” His amendment also sought “to examine the legislative instruments and to introduce appropriate amended legislation and the rest, after consultation with relevant stakeholders.”
Support also came from then MP and now Attorney General Anil Nandlall, who had described the introduction of community service as a penal sanction for certain types of offences as “an attractive and progressive sociological and jurisprudential concept”—a view consistent with the relevant research.
But going to the core of the issue, Mrs Backer had emphasised the need for us to stop criminalising petty offenders, particularly drug offenders who need treatment not imprisonment. Indeed, the processes of establishing and implementing the community service schemes in many jurisdictions have guided policymakers in exploring the relationship between penal sanctions and the community and about strategies for intervening in the penal system to bring about change.
While Mrs Backer was focused on these key issues, Minister Rohee said there are other important considerations, such as public opinion on crime. He argued that the majority of persons wanted to see criminals suffer maximum penalties and added that it was essential that the wrong signals were not sent to potential criminals. Hopefully, he rethinks this view because leniency and mercy do not mean that a society condones an offence.
So when we come around to discussing reforms in the criminal justice system and when everyone is prepared to show up, let us have reasoned debates on crime and corrections and extend those discussions to the issue of justice and mercy, and also rehabilitation and treatment.
Reforming the system so that matters could be heard speedily and thus there would be fewer prisoners on remand is a good idea, but it is not a great idea. A great idea would be to introduce real changes so that we could offer the “Nasty-Mans” in our society a future outside our prison walls.
We need reforms that will dismantle the “Hot-Skull” gangs in our communities, but also challenge young offenders to reform their lives. The social diseases in our society need a cure not the concrete closet we are expanding on Camp Street.
Have a question or comment? Connect with Iana Seales at about.me/iseales
