The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

One wonders how many more high-profile murders it will take before Bahamian politicians wake up, stop wringing their hands and start wielding the power that is in them to fix the immediate problem.

The seeds of the present crime wave were planted by the government that came to office in 1992. While there was always too much crime in The Bahamas, gun murders only began to escalate to the levels seen today in the last twenty years, because of actions and inactions of politicians of that era.

The obvious culprit is a bail regime that resulted from the then government’s precedent-setting actions in one singular case and the bail legislation that it subsequently enacted. Since that time, accused murderers routinely get bail, before it they virtually never did. They also routinely kill people or get killed in revenge while on bail.

When more than a half of murders involve a person on bail either as the accused or the victim, it is simply beyond argument that the system is not serving society. The idea that politicians can neither change it nor rein in the judges that defend it is patent nonsense. Even if it takes a constitutional amendment, it must be done.

Then there is the matter of sentencing for the illegal possession of firearms. Here, politicians’ failure to remove from the judiciary discretion on sentencing has cost this country countless lives and much treasure.

The Bahamas is simply awash with illegal guns and, just as sentencing for traffickers influences the street price of cocaine in the United States, our astonishingly light sentencing for illegal firearm possession has clearly impacted the ease of their availability. Any chancer can find and sell one.

Naturally, the casual attitude of Bahamian judges and magistrates towards illegal gun possession is reflected in a culture of normalization among convicted people themselves. When caught, criminals frequently cite in mitigation factors that anywhere else would result in lengthier sentences – and laughter.

A couple of years ago a man sought (and received) a light sentence on the basis that his dangerous occupation motivated him to own an illegal gun. He was a drug dealer.

Then, at the beginning of last year, another man who was caught driving around with an illegal, high powered weapon in his car explained to the court that he was trying to sell it. He got 13 months – which means he could be cruising your neighbourhood next month, looking for “customers” who just may shoot you.

Given the outrageous levels of gun violence now plaguing our communities, rational politicians would treat the possession of illegal guns as one of the most serious offences imaginable and would insist on mandatory sentencing where the courts are either acting irrationally or – more likely – taking a myopic view of their role in society.

People sometimes say “guns don’t kill, people do”. This observation, while true, is trite and academic in our circumstances. A similar argument could be made in defence of a zookeeper who intentionally leaves open his cages at night, then blames the ensuing carnage solely on the escaped occupants. Opened cages don’t eat people, lions do!

The residents of an island where guns are neither manufactured nor freely retailed are entitled to expect their occurrence to be rare, reflecting both of these factors and also the strength of the laws and institutions that govern the place. And these are the responsibility not of local criminals or their mothers, but of the courts and the parliament.

Which is why it is becoming increasingly clear to me that The Bahamas does not really have a crime problem. It has a judge and politician problem.

ANDREW ALLEN

Nassau.

December 27, 2021.