Death penalty is not a deterrent

THE EDITOR: Every week whether nationally or internationally gives rise to several topics/issues worthy of discussion or comment. Last week the undermentioned topics were worthy of comment:

The Privy Council and the Death Penalty
One of the many famous quotations is from Karl Marx who is alleged to have said “the masses are the asses.” This rings so true in Trinidad and Tobago where a very large number of people — literate/illiterate/stupid/not so stupid/more ignorant/less ignorant clamour for the death penalty to be imposed on persons convicted of murder. Their only cry is “To hell with the Lord, we want vengeance.” Every enlightened well read person knows that the death penalty does not and has never acted as a deterrent. This is why countries like England, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden etc have abolished this cruel and inhumane form of punishment.

Those countries that have retained it show a wanton disregard for decency, basic human values and respect for the sanctity of human life no matter how wretched. Countries and people who impose the death penalty display the quintessence of hypocrisy. Witness the United States of America a country that murdered countless native Americans (Red Indians), lynched hundreds of Afro-Americans, “nuked” thousands of innocent Japanese civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and continue with their wholesale murder and mayhem around the world.

Do you believe that these war crimes would have stopped if some of the American leaders responsible for those atrocities were executed Nuremberg style? Certainly not. The recent Privy Council decision did not go far enough. There are two types of penalties for murder currently enforced in Trinidad and Tobago — hanging and the imposition of lengthy jail terms. The first is instant death and the second a slower and more painful death from HIV/AIDS brought about by the rampant homosexual assaults that take place in our filthy, antiquated and gruesome dungeons that we call prisons. Sooner or later the statistics will surface and Trinidad and Tobago will be universally condemned by Amnesty International and other influential NGOs for its wanton disregard and criminal neglect of prison reform. Perhaps it is time for a constitutional motion to be brought for a declaration that our prisons are cruel, inhumane and totally degrading institutions and should be shut down while new and modern facilities are being constructed or proper alternative accommodation/s is/are located.

Crime Stoppers and “Ratfinks”
In the wake of the French Revolution thousands of innocent persons were executed because there was a “no questions asked” policy of squealing on your neighbours or for that matter anyone whom you did not like. If you had a grudge against your neighbour, you just went to the authorities and became a “ratfink,” squealed on him whether he was guilty or not and next thing you knew he would be on the wooden execution cart heading for the guillotine (to be beheaded). On the other hand, no one was beheaded for public mischief and under crime stoppers no one can be prosecuted for that offence. So have a grudge against your neighbour? Call 800-TIPS. Enough of last week. Let’s see what arises this week.

M HOTIN
St James