Deosaran: Let punishment fit the crime

THERE must be more patient adjudication in cases involving maintenance and other minor crimes, with sentences amounting to one year or less. This was one of the  recommendations put forward by Prof Ramesh Deosaran, head of the Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of the West Indies campus at St Augustine, relative to the preparation of prison reports addressing the recidivism problem existing in the nation’s six prisons — Carrera Convict Prison, Golden Grove Males and Women’s Prisons, Maximum Security Prison, Port-of-Spain Prison and Tobago Convict Prison.

Deosaran was speaking during the formal presentation of the reports to the Junior Minister of National Security Fitzgerald Hinds at the ministry’s Abercromby Street office yesterday. According to Deosaran, government should attempt to put a more humane face on sentencing, and judges and magistrates must consider what was happening at the prisons where they sent those found guilty of minor offences. “Putting a man in jail for maintenance will not solve anything,” Deosaran said. It would not help his family, would not help in rehabilitation, and would only add to the problem of already overcrowded prisons.

“Policies for crime reduction and rehabilitation must be guided by data analysis and statistics,” he said. Deosaran said he had included suggested guidelines to judges and magistrates for sentencing for various crimes, in the reports. “Justice must not only be fair but must also appear to be fair in terms of sentencing,” he said. However, the professor said we need to bear in mind that the 42 recommended changes laid out in the reports would take time before they became manifest. “There is a culture in prison life and cultures cannot be changed overnight,” he said. Hinds said the entire business of rehabilitation and prison reform was “a serious work” because an attempt was being made to reform a system that had been set for centuries. He said although the wheels of change have already begun turning, the task of penal rehabilitation and reform is an evolutionary process. However, he said Trinidad and Tobago was working steadfastly toward a developed country prison system even before the year 2020.

Regarding the recent death of Ignatius “Shakes” Owen at Golden Grove, Hinds said the matter was under investigation by the police. Ignatius, who had been arrested on a committal warrant for neglecting to pay child maintenance, was allegedly beaten to death in the prison. Hinds advised the nation’s youths to conduct their affairs in such a manner they would not become part of the approximately 4,000 men and 120 women who spend time at the prisons on a daily basis.