The offer of evangelical parsons to take the hangman's job notwithstanding, it is unlikely - whatever the outcome of the current parliamentary conscience debate on capital punishment - that executions will take place in Jamaica anytime soon. If ever.

The fact is that most thoughtful people, including those in the Jamaican legislature, are conflicted over the issue of capital punishment. For it is not easy in Jamaica to be against the death penalty.

The truth is that with our state of violent crime, including more than 1,500 homicides annually for a murder rate of more than 60 per 100,000 population, people are scared. Often, the easiest answer, pushed by fundamentalist purveyors of Old Testament theology, is for vengeance against the murderers.

And for those who have to hustle electoral votes, it is far less complicated to back capital punishment if 70 per cent of their constituents are in support of it. It is the point of least resistance.

Pressure to conform

So, it will not be surprising if the majority of the MPs, however they couch their decision, feel pressure to conform, on this subject, to a religious fundamentalist vision of the world and vote in favour of the retention of hanging in Jamaica.

But most will be aware that that will largely be that, for the reasons highlighted by Robert Pickersgill during the debate on Tuesday.

Of course, Mr Pickersgill's aim is to cause discomfiture to the Government with a manoeuvre that would force it to face the political/constitutional issue of having the Privy Council as Jamaica's court of last resort, over which both sides have long sparred.

It is a fact that the 1990s ruling by the Privy Council on the Pratt and Morgan case, that held it cruel and inhumane to have a person on death row for more than five years, limits the possibility of executions.

Given all the avenues for appeal open to murder convicts, plus other complicating rulings by the Privy Council, it is almost impossible to conclude cases in Jamaica, short of constitutional changes, such as were undertaken in Barbados, to short-circuit appeals.

No compelling evidence

In any event, there is no compelling evidence, from any society, that capital punishment is an effective deterrent to crime, including murder. What is certain, though, is the finality of execution. Once the death penalty has been carried out, there is no reversal, which complicates matters in a circumstance where DNA evidence is increasingly showing jailed people to have been innocent, and in Jamaica's case, where law enforcement is known to be corrupt and inefficient.

The bottom line is that capital punishment cannot be the answer to the ineptitude of the constabulary. The really effective deterrent to crime is when real perpetrators believe that they are likely to be caught, tried and perhaps lose their liberty. This hardly happens in Jamaica, where fewer than half of all crimes are 'cleared up' and only a handful of persons are ever convicted for murders. Criminals operate with impunity.

So, rather than being held hostage to the fundamentalists and those who want easy solutions to complex problems, we should really be starting by undertaking the hard job of fixing a broken police force and a dysfunctional society.