Parliamentarians debate hanging at Gordon House, on November 12. - Norman Grindley/acting photography editor
OUR ELECTED representatives have seemingly equated conscience with emotions.
Such a pity.
After three consecutive parliamentary sittings and extensive debate on whether to retain capital punishment on the country's books, the House of Representatives has reinforced a feeling among many that it is for the most part a hot air balloon.
To kill or not to kill is the question with which parliamentarians are faced and surprisingly, for those of us who hold them in high esteem, they have responded with greater form than substance.
Karl Samuda, the member of parliament for East Central St Andrew, was bang on when he told the Parliament that whether or not the law was retained, the way forward must be a plan of action to strengthen the family and other institutions in order to build a safer Jamaica.
But after 41 presentations in the House, the accompanying road map has not come; the research which informs the presentations are seemingly hiding.
Not one member has stood up with any detailed empirical evidence or any anthropological work to inform the debate.
Blood thirst
Instead, raw emotions, blood thirst and the pursuit of revenge just flowed unchecked from the mouths of the hanging members.
One after another they used graphic language to paint the most horrific picture of the crime monster and scriptures and memory gems to justify why the barbarian should die.
No less culpable are the opponents of the death penalty. Many of them argued that given the porous nature of Jamaica's justice system one cannot be certain that the man being put to the gallows is the man who committed the crime.
Pearnel Charles, in all his flamboyance, challenged them to name one innocent man who has been hung. The answers were George William Gordon, Samuel Sharp and Paul Bogle.
Life of crime
Now, that's more than shameful.
There was also the argument that society had not given the convicted man enough opportunity to prevent him from turning from a life of crime.
What rubbish! Pure tripe all around. Where is the evidence?
Perhaps, here is where we call for a point of order!
And, please, don't get clever and ask from what section of the Standing Orders is it being requested. Spare the Speaker and his deputy the confusion.
After hours of debate, giggling and sometimes hostility in the House, we are still to get a clear picture of how the hangman and the parson being in business would advance or deter the growth of our society.
Enough sound bytes, brilliant postures and colourful language from the presenters. Most of their arguments hang helplessly; no research no depth.
Not one member of parliament could give an exact figure as to the number of people murdered in the 20-year period since the death penalty was last administered. Not one spoke of the number of executions carried out or the correlation between those executions and crime in the society since independence.
That, Mr Speaker, should have been the base for most, if not all, presentations.
An attack on the state
We still have no clue as to how many murders would attract the capital punishment.
One commonality among the hang-dem posse was how brutal and brazen the criminals have become, slaughtering women and children and killing policemen - an attack on the state.
These attacks all fall under the banner of capital murder and could attract the death penalty.
But none, not one MP, as loudly as they shouted and as passionate as they got, brought statistics to the House as to the number of multiple killings that have taken place over a particular period.
The Parliament is yet to hear what is the rate of recidivism among murderers and persons charged with gun offences?
Jamaica is yet to hear an estimate of how may persons in our society and of a particular age group, are 'shottas' and 'shottas'-in-waiting. Irredeemable barbarians who should face the gallows.
We are yet to hear, in a coordinated way, that serious debate as to the role the resumption of hanging will play as part of an entire menu of restoring law and order and a sense of peace and stability to our society.
What is the timeline, for example, for abolishing capital punishment, if there is retention, and under what circumstances it would be removed.
But the problem of lack of research was not confined to those hanging MPs. In fact, members who spoke against the death penalty did not sufficiently aid their cause, because they were not properly armed with information.
Inevitably, the tough love argument came up, but only to say that the persons who would go to the gallows are sons of poor people. But, again, no evidence showing a link between poverty and criminality was presented to the House.
What do you do with convicted murders? There is a word called rehabilitation.
But after hours and hours of debate, not many persons who watched the debates got a sense of how rehabilitation has worked, especially for convicted murderers in the system.
The Andrews, Gallimore and Holness, would like to see the murderer live to repay society for his crime for the rest of his life.
High-risk prisoners
Gallimore, for example, suggested that the prisoner be put to work and be ridiculed while he sweats in his pink convict wear. However, we are yet to hear from him how Jamaica would manage these high-risk prisoners.
Indeed, the country has just got to the stage where it is attempting to put low-risk prisoners to work.
What of the cost benefit analysis as it relates to how much it would take to manage those prisoners and to purchase the technology to prevent them from escaping or to ensure that they work?
But why should we be surprised by the lack of depth in this debate? Afterall, it is an emotional vote. No amount of informed reasoning seems able to sway members as to how they would likely vote tomorrow.
We beg of the Senate to make the debate more educational than emotional.
In the same breath, we respectfully move that this country seriously consider a special allowance for MPs to hire university graduates in their offices to do research and speech writing.
Perhaps, then, we would get more than an elevated lyme from our elected officials.
thegavel@gleanerjm.com
