Trinidad and Tobago is about to resume legal executions for murder, an emotive issue that's getting much support at home but unlikely to be popular with organisations such as Amnesty International.Given the state of criminal activity and senseless killings that have seen hundreds of people murdered every year, (see homicide statitsics) it is normal for the population to feel that it's time for all those who do the crime to pay the ultimate price.
Attorney General Anand Ramlogan announced last Friday that hangings will resume.
A day earlier at the weekly post-cabinet news briefing acting Prime Minister Jack Warner said he asked Ramlogan to advise this week's Cabinet meeting on the measures required to resume legal executions.
Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar returns home Monday night and will chair that meeting.
Warner said he also wants Ramlogan to “look at what international organisations, to which we are affiliated, which have been preventing us from enforcing hangings... and if it means that we have to delink from them, then we shall do so.”
And Minister in the Ministry of National Security Subhas Panday has said his ministry is conducting a "head count" to determine how many convicted persons are on death row. There are at least 50 prisoners on death row. Some of them have exhausted all their legal options.
There is a popular view that hangings will be a deterrent to crime and as a result reduce the number of murders that take place in the country.
"I am convinced that were we to reinstate hangings, which is the law of the land, it will have a dent on crime. I am convinced," Warner told reporters last week.
However, the reality is that only a small fraction of killers get caught because of the country's poor detection rate, which means that scores of murders have remained unsolved.
Hanging the few who are caught, tried and convicted will therefore only send a message but not get at the root of the problem. It would possibly create fear in the minds of some potential killers and cause them to be less trigger happy about killing people and walking away.
However seasoned killers who are walking free in Trinidad and Tobago today will continue to ignore the law and carry on with business as usual.
Amnesty International has been in the forefront of the argument against capital punishment. In a report as far back as 2000 it justified its concerns because of conditions in Trinidad and Tobago.
According to the report, "There are persistent reports that trials, including in cases involving the death penalty, fail to meet international standards for fairness. Conditions of detention, including on remand and in prisons, are reportedly so overcrowded and unsanitary as to constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment."
Ten years later, prison conditions have not got any better. The legal and court system still faces immense challenges that are so bad a judge - who is now a cabinet minister - suggested to prisoners that they should go on strike.
Read the story: Frustrated judge tells prisoners to go on strike
related story: New UNC Senator laments tragedy of T&T prison system
This concern about unfair convictions raises the question about whether we can be sure that the convicted person is the one who has done the crime. Even some cases with the most compelling evidence end up being bogus.
There are scores of international cases where innocent people were convicted of murder only to be freed many years later when their cases were reopened after intense lobbying.
In Canada, where the death penalty has been abolished, several people have been freed after serving many years as convicted murderers.
Read about Canada's experience at CBC.ca
In June 1999 Trinidad and Tobago executed nine members of the Dole Chadee criminal gang, including Chadee, for the murder of a family in south Trinidad. It was the first executions in five years and was done under a UNC government.
Read a report on the day of the execution
Amnesty International expressed deep concern that one of those executed may have been an innocent man, noting that on the eve of the execution, the Attorney-General had received previously undisclosed evidence which cast serious doubt as to his guilt and the fairness of his trial.
In another case Amnesty claimed that on 28 July 1999 the government violated its obligations under the American Convention on human rights and hanged Anthony Briggs.
The IACHR had decided in his case that his rights guaranteed by the American Convention had been violated and recommended that his death sentence be commuted.
Furthermore the Inter-American Court on Human Rights had ordered the government of Trinidad and Tobago to preserve Anthony Briggs' life until ''the court has considered the matter.''
While every effort must be made to end crime, Trinidad and Tobago must be careful not to sustain a black eye in its decision to return to hanging. Opting out of membership in Human Rights organisations sends the wrong signals.
I agree that the authorities must be firm in their resolve to stamp out crime.
Dealing with crime was one of the most important campaign promises and the population is expecting results. However, a few executions to dramatise the issue will not make crime go away.
Yes, the country must deal with those who break the law. But at the same time it must create the conditions from the bottom up to ensure that the system doesn't breed criminals and neglect young people.
The People's Partnership campaigned to do something about it. And Ramlogan, before he became AG, made an impassioned plea to the state to do something to help.
"The tsunami of young criminals that I have been warning about is building," Ramlogan wrote in a column titled A Nation of Osmonds. "I see the evidence of it in the school violence, the Magistrates Court and the growing iconic status of the rude boy and bad boy".
IF the nation's disdain for its youth helps create criminals, the starting point to end crime must be to change that. Let's dig out the roots of crime and perhaps we could fire the hangman.
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