Hang who? - The Peter O'Connor column

“Prime Minister Patrick Manning should be ashamed of himself for trumpeting Strategy X to reduce crime as ‘hang them all now’!”

That was the opening line of this column on Sunday 20th January 2008, a little over three years ago.

The only thing that has changed is the government. Indeed, Manning’s vainglorious grandcharge was so hollow that murders continued to soar through the balance of his reign until he literally fled office in May 2010. 

The change in government, which brought in new people claiming that they would reduce the scourge of murders, brought no effective reduction. 

Indeed, Manning himself had promised us that murders would increase as he brought in his Offshore Patrol Vessels and helicopter gunships. Well we cancelled the OPV’s and the murder rate has not increased, although there was a surge of killings mounted as if to challenge the new administration and the new police commissioner.

In that column three years ago, I went on to say: “Patrick Manning and his obedient neophyte government can pass all the laws they want to ‘speed up hangings’ and we will see no reduction in the murders by shooting as a result of this meaningless legislation”.

But a newly emotive government, faced with an outcry from the people who are now totally fed up with the killings—whether in “gangland”, whether in tabanca, or the worst of them all, the slaying of little children, is latching on to Manning’s hysteria, and pledging “hangings” when they simply do not have the capability to bring about arrests, far less convictions in the courts. 

So I ask once again: Who are we going to hang, if we cannot arrest or convict anyone?

Again, from January 2008: 

“This emotional outburst by an increasingly insecure Manning was clearly made to deflect criticisms of his government’s failure to make any inroads whatever into the scourge of crime”. 

And one gets the feeling today that Kamla, Anand, Jack, Rudi and Suruj have found themselves in a similar hopeless condition and hoping that by brandishing “Rope”, criminals will cower in fear and “change their ways”.

I believe that the people involved in banditry, kidnappings and gang wars totally scoff at any notion that the State will ever hang any of them. So from where is this “fear of hanging” going to come? The simple truth is that most of these criminals are far more likely to die from the bullets of other gangs or the police. 

We would need to hang about three hundred of them each year to create a greater fear in them than the fear of dying by the bullet. And even if we wanted to do that, we could never process that number of trials through our antiquated, inefficient and ponderous courts systems.

I am not arguing for or against the death penalty here. I am simply trying to point out that all of this hue and cry to hang them high is just another set of noise without any meaning whatever. 

And it is “noise” which Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar should seek to silence, for I believe she is more intelligent than that. 

Let us all accept that we cannot hang people unless we go out and lynch them, and I think no one is advocating that extreme—as yet.

So what therefore can we do? 

As stated in January 2008, the police know full well who are committing the murders, kidnappings and acts of banditry, but they cannot get witnesses to testify. 


As I suggested then, and indeed for some years prior to that, we need to declare a State of Emergency. Under the Emergency conditions the police could detain persons found with guns, ammunition, or in the process of committing crimes. 

There will be no bail allowed under a State of Emergency, although detainees could apply to a Tribunal for release. But it is unlikely that releases will be granted to persons caught with firearms, or charged with serious crimes. 

These detainees would be kept in a special Detention Centre, with absolutely no access to telephones or communication with their gangs. While they are locked up, the police can build cases against them without becoming corrupted or having witnesses killed.

And remember, a State of Emergency does not “require” curfews or curtailment of what I write. Once declared, it can be applied where needed, and in this case it is needed against crime and illegal firearms.

So Kamla, I who have your back, call upon you to leave this hanging hysteria and get on with locking away the criminals, by a State of Emergency if necessary, and by fixing the courts system to deal with criminals in the future. And start to re-impose values into our schools and communities. 

The people are getting ready to return to civilization.