LETTER OF THE DAY - New will needed to implement old laws
Published:Monday | June 14, 2010 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
The six anti-crime bills may well add to the difficulties of our institutions - police, courts, prosecutors, lock-ups, and prisons - in addressing crime. The police at present lack the numbers, vehicles, and the support systems to succeed in reducing crime.
Calls to 119 may therefore go unanswered; investigators may arrive at a crime scene hours or days late; and prisoners may miss court dates. As a result, innocent persons can be punished while offenders are about 90 per cent certain of not being caught. Jamaica has had almost 7,000 unsolved murders over the past six years.
Reports continue to describe conditions in Jamaican lockups and prisons as overcrowded and unsanitary. The Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre houses about 1,600 prison inmates, though it was built for 600 inmates.
Judges as well as prosecutors face challenges in clearing the backlog.
If these anti-crime bills are passed, already overwhelmed justice and security services will be faced with the task of finding:
Space in lock-ups to house persons detained for 72 hours (rather than 24), and for up to 60 days (rather than on being charged) before a judge could decide on bail.
Transportation and security
Transportation and security for persons to attend court after seven days and then every 14 days during the 60-day detention period.
Judges, prosecutors, court staff and court rooms for hearings to review detainees' cases up to four times during the 60-day detention period; to decide on
Space in prisons to house inmates who would have to remain for ten years (rather than seven years at present) without chance of parole.
These crime bills seem likely to further cripple our struggling institutions without making the country safer.
What seems missing are not new laws, but the will to enable institutions to implement existing laws.
I am, etc.,
Yvonne McCalla Sobers