There are lies, damn lies and statistics. This is, an oft quoted saying because statistics are often quoted to mislead. The figures are true but the conclusions are false. Here is a good example. The Human Rights Commission has concluded that there is no correlation between the death penalty and the incidence of murder. We don’t know which countries have been studied and the circumstances appertaining. This is important. For instance, since 1957, the incidence of murder in Belize has increased annually, dramatically so in the last five years. In 1957, there was one murder and the murderer was convicted and executed. The penalty for murder is death but, there has been no execution since 1957. So, a study of the death penalty and the incidence of murder in Belize would show that there is no correlation between the two. In fact, it would suggest that we might be better off to abolish capital punishment. You can see the illogic of it. In fact, it is absurd.
The fact is that our courts no longer sentence convicted murderers to death. It would not matter if they did because the government will not execute any one. For years now, the sentence for this crime has been life imprisonment. Before this, convicted murderers were sentenced to death, commuted to life imprisonment by the Governor General on the advice of the Belize Advisory Council when the circumstances warranted this action.
Although the Judiciary is independent. It does not operate in a vacuum. It is influenced by the fact that the Privy Council seems to be at pains to find reasons to overturn the decisions of inferior courts, when cases of murderers sentenced to death by our Supreme Court and confirmed by the Court of Appeals, have been appealed to it.
And, therefore, the deterrent effect to the incidence of this crime, which capital punishment must have, is totally negated.
It is not so in our sister countries of CARICOM (Why they are sister and not brother, I can’t say) where the final court of appeal is the Caribbean Court of Justice. Why the Privy Council is the final court of appeal for Belize alone amongst CARICOM countries is a question you may wish to address to the government. This is a very serious question because our governments seem powerless to act decisively in dealing with the rising level of lawlessness in our society and, especially, with regard to the murder rate.
Britain and the other First World countries have abolished capital punishment. The British are an orderly and comparatively affluent society. They have a welfare state, free education and health care. Their buses and trains run on time. You can post a letter or newspaper to anywhere in England in the morning and the addressee will be reading them the same night. You can walk the streets of London in the day or night (except, perhaps on Harrow Road) without anyone disturbing you. No one will smash your car window to get at what’s inside if you leave it parked for a short while. Or kill you for an ideal, a bottle of Guinness, your bicycle or, if they think they have been dissed. As, they do here. Why, then does the Privy Council and the Human Rights Commission make it their mission to impose their ideas on us about crime and punishment.
This is the syllogism on which the Human Rights Commission base its position: –
(i) Based on studies of certain societies, it has been found that there is no correlation between the death penalty and the incidence of murder.
(ii) All societies are alike.
(iii) Therefore, there is no correlation between the death penalty and the incidence of murder in Belize.
(iv) Therefore, the death penalty should be abolished.
No. (i) is a fact but, there is something wrong with the second statement. There are vast differences between first world and third world societies. We are all human beings and share the same human nature, but, we are far from the same in our behaviour patterns. Can you conceive of an Englishman killing a compatriot for an ideal (soft drink).
Ninety-seven murders were committed in Belize in 2007. In a population of 300,000 that is a rate of about 1 in 3000. We are a sick society. The Book of Numbers say the blood of a murdered victim defiles the land. So, we are swimming in a sea of defilement and we have become so accustomed to it that our political leaders have not come to the realization that CRIME IS OUR NUMBER ONE PRIORITY. So much so that they come up with band-aid measures to fight crime.
First world countries have been sovereign states for many centuries. Britain is more than eight hundred years old. Belize is twenty-six. They all have orderly and highly organized societies. Belize may be on the road to that happy state but it has a long way to go. The socio/cultural state of first world countries should not be the basis to establish norms, for penal systems in third world countries. This is what the Human Rights Commission (HRC) seems to have set out to do.
It is a great boon to anyone who has been imprisoned for his political convictions or mistreated as a prisoner in a foreign country, that there is an organization which is internationally respected like the Human Rights Commission to come to his aid. Its track record of service to suffering humanity is magnificent indeed.
But, third world countries are having a problem with HRC when it comes to the part it is playing in supporting the cause of convicted murderers. The problem is that HRC believes they have a right to life, contrary to those of us in Belize who are advocates of our Judeo/Christian tradition that believe that the life of a murderer is forfeit.
I think that this is a fair question to ask. Should the Human Rights Commission go so far as to frustrate the ends of justice in Belize by retaining the services of one of our best attorneys to appeal cases of convicted murderers to the Privy Council, thereby adding to the financial burdens of government to defend the decisions of our courts? There are more worthy causes for HRC to dispense funds in support.
A few years ago, a prominent journalist was commenting on the disorderly state of affairs in our country, with particular reference to the prevalence of murders and he said, “Things will get much worse before they get better”. I thought that was a very callous remark for him to make. Other perceptive people felt the same way but they wouldn’t give voice to it. I don’t think we need to have people making Columbus-like pronouncements of the obvious. But, he was right! He was so right.
On Friday last, two men opened fire on party goers, presumably celebrating the results of the elections at the Putt Putt Bar and Restaurant at the old Newtown Club Site, killing one person and injuring ten others. There were three other shooting incidents on the same night at different places in the city. Another citizen was killed and five seriously injured.
What is striking about the first incident is that the murderers may or may not have had a target but they did not care who were in their line of fire. This speaks volumes about ATTITUDE. These individuals have no regard for other people’s lives, nor for our law enforcement agency, nor for our justice system. Neither regard nor respect. They have the power of life and death over their defenseless victims and can shoot them down like pigeons. In their own minds and in the minds of their associates, they are not mindless, senseless barbarians. They are friends and brothers because they wear the same colours and belong to the same gang. The gangs are a cancer on the body politic. They have been for sometime. I think it is fairto ask what will the man whose sworn duty is to protect the lives of our citizens do about this situation. Clearly, life imprisonment is not a deterrent to murder.
The death penalty is not a deterrent in Belize because it is a punishment which exists only in a book. To all intents and purposes it may as well be abolished. If it were, what penalty should we impose for this crime which will be more effective. Is there such a penalty?
I think that the lives of at least half of the 97 murder victims in 2007 would have been saved if murderers were executed. Perhaps, more because many of these murderers have killed more than once. Our history supports this view.
What is now to be done. Let our best minds be brought to bear on the problem. The last Crime Commission was established in 1992. Since then, the Minister of Home Affairs instituted a crime council composed of himself, the CEO and senior member of the Police Department to deal with crimes. According to their reports there has been a reduction in crime. Statistics to the contrary, crime levels have got to the stage where people no longer report them. They prefer to suffer in silence. We deserve better. We deserve to have public safety and the protection of the lives of our citizens given the highest priority by our government.