Saturday, November 29, 2008

Jamaica Vote Backs Death Penalty

Excerpt from article: "Opposition politician DK Duncan warned that the measure could lead to further violence, similar to what happened in the 1970s when the government authorised police to enter homes without a warrant. 'All that did was allow policemen to kick down people's doors, scare children and destroy lives,' he said, 'It developed a culture of brutality, and we have to take responsibility that Jamaica has come to this.' "

Wednesday, November 26 12:20 pm

Jamaica Vote Backs Death Penalty

Jamaica's parliament has voted to keep the death penalty, which has not been used for 20 years, despite pressure to abolish it.

Recent governments in the Caribbean nation have been reluctant to issue death warrants and the last execution was in 1988.

Human rights groups say the death penalty does not deter crime and called on the government to focus on attacking poverty and reforming the justice system instead.

But there have been demands for executions in the past few months, even by members of the clergy, after a young girl was beheaded and an 11-year-old boy's dismembered body was found in a rubbish bag.

The ruling Labour Party vowed to address the issue when it came to power 15 months ago.

Jamaica's House of Representatives voted 34-15 in favour of keeping capital punishment, with 10 abstentions.

Prime Minister Bruce Golding pledged to resume executions in response to the country's high murder rate, which has repeatedly been ranked among the worst in the world.

Opposition politician DK Duncan warned that the measure could lead to further violence, similar to what happened in the 1970s when the government authorised police to enter homes without a warrant.

"All that did was allow policemen to kick down people's doors, scare children and destroy lives," he said.

"It developed a culture of brutality, and we have to take responsibility that Jamaica has come to this."

More than 1,240 killings have been reported this year in the island of 3 million people, with a total of 1,400 murders last year.

In comparison, Chicago, a city of about 2.8 million residents, reported 443 murders in 2007.

1 comment:

CN said...

The following short update from DPIC relates to the comment excerpt above the article on Jamaica's recent vote:

Gap Between the Murder Rate of Death Penalty States and Non-Death Penalty States Remains Large
Posted: November 26, 2008
in

States with the death penalty have consistently had higher murder rates than states without the death penalty. If the death penalty was acting as a deterrent to murder, one might expect that the gap between these two groups would lessen over a long period of time as states using the death penalty obtained an advantage in reducing murders. However, the gap has grown larger over the past 18 years. In 2007, states with the death penalty had a 42% higher murder rate than states without the death penalty. In 1990, the gap was only 4%.

A murder rate is obtained by dividing the number of murders in a state by the state's population. It is possible to obtain a single murder rate for "states with the death penalty" by adding the total number of murders in such states by the total population of these states. A murder rate for "states without the death penalty" can be similarly obtained...In 2007, the murder rate for states with the death penalty was 5.83 and for states without the death penalty it was 4.10, a 42% difference. The national murder rate in 2007 was 5.6.

(Murder rates from FBI Uniform Crime Report, calculations by David Cooper; DPIC, Nov. 25, 2008). See Deterrence and more related to this recent note at
Death Penalty Information Center.
(Find this link and others on the JOH weblog - go to lower right column)