By Michael Spence
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| Michael Spence |
At US$15,000 per year, that is US$675,000—or J$108,000,000—a burden that Jamaican taxpayers, living and dead, will bear. A certain death sentence for murder is what makes economic, justiciable, and humane sense.
Our courts, in collusion with the Jamaican state, should stop rewarding murderers with long life at the expense of hapless taxpayers. Jamaica is supposed to be a democracy where the majority of the people believe in execution or hanging for guilty murderers.
This justiciable default is often the reason for self-help and street judiciary manifestations. I have heard with my own two ears offended family members lamenting that the police caught their family's murderer before they did, wishing he would fall into their hands instead.
There have been cases where someone freed from the Circuit Court in downtown Kingston did not make it further than Marcus Garvey Drive, not even to Three Miles.
Trials, especially for murder, should be a sprint, not a marathon. Our courts need to be equipped to move faster and carry out death sentences quickly.
The last two death sentences in Jamaica—two brothers, for killing a man I knew only as "Busta", a decent, hard-working small farmer in the Bethel Town Police Division of Westmoreland—were carried out in June and July 1988.
Executions for murder then were a major deterrent, not long gun court sentences, which, looking back, were worse than the 15 years now given for guns.
Looking back, the Michael Manley and Edward Seaga era showed the lowest murder rates in Jamaica's modern history.
A holistic approach was used, not simply killing the gun boys. Under Seaga, the average annual murder rate was 494 murders. Manley was lower in modern gun times, averaging about 418.
What has happened since?
Will gun and murder music be banned or outlawed as subversive, carrying 15 years mandatory if breached?
That Duncehall sector of Dancehall has been responsible in part for the vulgarization, scumbagization, and literary socialization of the gunman and gun-finger youth. Elevating murder and murder music into style and fashion must stop.
Are we aware that there are countries that do not welcome purveyors of murder music, slackness, nastiness, and corruption? The ideology of Nasty Mouthism is unwelcome.
If Jamaica is to clean itself up and wipe out murder, it should do the same.
I cannot resist mentioning Singapore—a country of 6.2 million people in 2025 that had 7 murders. Jamaica, 2.7 million people, had 673 murders in that same year.
Jamaica can and must do better. In 1962, the year of independence, we had 63 murders.
Away with murdering our brothers and sisters.
One Love Jamaica.
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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Your calculations are at best inaccurate. In a decent society it always cost morefor the state to murder its citizens than to incarcerate them for life, without parole. In the United States many victims of the death penalty have been posthumously proven to be innocent of the crime for which they were executed. Are you so absolutely moronic that you believe it wise to surrender the power of death to Jamaica's religion besoted ruling elites? Those who have brown people parties and hate Black and Afrikan features. For whom do you think they will deploy the.executioner? But since you trust Jamaican politicians so much with the ultimate power of life and death and our crooked, classist, Afrikan features hating,, barely literate, judges, volunteer to be one of the first so you can show the world how fair and just the death penalty in the Jamaican context is and will be. We eagerly await your report.
ReplyDeleteGo rethink your position it seems you would want to turn Jamaica into a murderer farm.
DeleteAre you aware that for many years Jamaica was the murder capital ofvthebworld.Disgracefully so.
Isn't it more civilized tfor the state to execute murderers than for a free for all security forces and street justice be the order of the day.
As a member of the Jamaican public I say no to murder and yes to the execution of murderers.
You have not stated the accurate cost of maintaining each prisoner or all prisoners in Jamaica. Minister Pearnel Charles Jr. said in 2018 that it cost JAD 1.3 million to maintain each prisoner annually. That figure would be higher in 2026. How is it possible for the death penalty to cost the state more than giving someone a life sentence?
ReplyDeleteThese are good points. Unfortunately, Jamaica is a complicated, corrupt country. As someone alluded to earlier, the system is too crooked to be trusted with such an important responsibility as it stands. There would have to be some genuine reforms first. We all want crimes, especially murder to decrease to reasonable levels, but as it stands today, it's a pipe dream. Too many loopholes. No accountability and transparency at the government level. Surrender or meet your maker? The slogan many support because they don't understand the statement is illegal and unconstitutional. That's Jamaica. People support wrong and bemoan the right. Crime isn't going anywhere, it will just re-design and re-organize itself until something is seriously done about it.
ReplyDeleteNot in the current state of the country. The country is corrupt and it could prove disastrous as someone alluded to earlier. The innocent are the ones to suffer, while the guilty can manipulate the system and walk free.
ReplyDeleteThe people are not realizing what they are witnessing. But time will tell.