THE PROSPECT of several hundred Jamaican convicts being deported from the United Kingdom must heighten the concern of local law enforcement authorities as well as the society in general about the potential effect such returnees might have on the high levels of crime.
While precise details are not yet available, initial reports are that the prospective deportees had opted for early release from prison on condition that they return home. On the face of it, this raises the prospect that they would complete their prison sentences in Jamaica; but this has been dismissed by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of National Security, Gilbert Scott, who said that they will arrive home as free persons.
This averts one problem, but poses another. The two maximum security prisons are already overcrowded and would have been hard put to accommodate the hundreds of deportees expected; but those being freed would need to be monitored on returning home if their records warrant it.
This was made possible under legislation enacted in 1994 and successfully invoked through the nineties to determine that persons deemed as dangers to the society be designated as 'restricted persons'.
In June of 2002, however, the Court of Appeal threw out one case with the declaration that the Criminal Justice Administration Act was not going to 'rubber-stamp' police evidence in the particular case against a 33-year-old deportee who was not deemed a threat to public safety.
That particular case was more in keeping with the views of some lawyers and civil rights advocates that the legislation is a serious infringement of the fundamental rights and liberties of the citizen whose freedom might be restricted in his homeland where he had committed no offence.
On the other hand, the Commissioner of Police had submitted a supporting affidavit in the case, disclosing that intelligence reports have revealed that generally deportees are actively engaged in activities prejudicial to public safety; and that with the start of the deportations the security forces had detected a new dimension in the commission of violent crimes, including execution of Crown witnesses, drive-by shootings, proliferation of drug trafficking, and the like.
Permanent Secretary Scott says the Government is bound under international obligations to accept persons who are certified as Jamaican nationals. Equally, the law enforcement agencies through the relevant channels must ascertain details of all deportees who warrant legal monitoring in the interest of public safety.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
