Laws Should Enable The Punishment Of The Act And The Intention To Act

By Michael Spence

Michael Spence

A real working gun and an imitation gun that is not being used to intimidate anyone are two completely different things in criminal law:

1. Different danger: A real gun can kill. An imitation, toy, or board gun sitting in a house cannot. Mandatory sentences are meant to reflect degrees of danger. Treating them the same is disproportionate.
2. No victim, no intimidation: The crime of using a gun in a robbery, murder or threat is about putting a victim in fear of death. If no one is being threatened, if there is no commission of a crime, if the imitation is just found in a house — there is no victim. You cannot sentence possession of plastic the same as attempted murder.
3. Same sentence destroys deterrence: If a youth gets 15 years mandatory for a water gun in his bedroom, and a gunman gets 15 years for a real Glock used to kill let's say "BUSTA" a small farmer from York Mountain.What message are you sending? That both are equal. It cheapens justice and teaches the public that the law is not serious about real murder.
4. It will not reduce murders: Jamaica had 63 murders in 1962. In 2025, 673. Murders are not done with toys. They are done by people with real illegal guns who intend to kill. Locking up people for board guns inflates conviction numbers but leaves the real killers on the street, even ordering hits from behind bars.
5. It can create a lucrative prison industry: It costs taxpayers now about US$15,000 / J$2.4M per prisoner per year. 

Under a privatized PRISHOTEL model it will be US$30,000 / J$4.8M p.a. 

When possession of a board gun carries 15 years, you are building a prison business model for full occupancy, not public safety.

America's rate is US$68,000 to US$168,000 that is why they sublet prisoners to El Salvador and low-cost countries.

If an imitation gun is used to intimidate during a robbery, murder, or threat, punish it as the armed crime it was used for.

If it is NOT being used to intimidate anyone during any crime, it cannot and must not carry the same 15-year mandatory sentence as a real, working,  firearm.

Michael Spence

Michael Spence is a graduate of Cornwall College and the University of the West Indies. He is a trained teacher, a sociologist, and a writer for Bark Di Trute.

Micspen2@hotmail.com 

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