There is today a major concern in the community concerning the perception that there are Bahamian criminals who are ‘on the loose’ courtesy a court system that is apparently not working.
As another year slouches towards its end, Bahamians are of two minds. On the one hand, most of them are giving thanks for just being alive. Others of a more pessimistic bent are exercised by a number of things.
Highest on that list would be their perception that crime is running amok and their premonition that the coming year is going to be one that is filled with a myriad of personal and social challenges.
Some three years ago, a plaintive prime minister commiserated with victims of crime. As the record shows, the Rt. Hon. Perry Gladstone Christie put this question to an audience of party faithful, “What about the rest of the society and their right to live in peace, unmolested by criminals who know how to milk the constitution down to the last drop so that they can be free to keep the rest of the society in fear.”
His perception concerning ‘criminals who know how to milk the constitution down to the last drop’ struck a receptive chord in that audience. Today that prime minister’s perception of has apparently taken root. There is talk to the effect that a defective Bail Act and compliant judges have -together- some how worked to the benefit of the ‘criminals’ and to the detriment of society at large.
Prime minister Christie is on record as being of the view that the courts have become, in all too many instances, a revolving door. We have absolutely no reason to believe or say that the prime minister did not know what he was saying.
Indeed as we have learned -and much to our dismay- there are very many cases where men and women who have been charged with very serious offences -inclusive of murder and robbery- are out on bail. That is where the problem begins for the community at large.
Information reaching us suggests that a number of Bahamians are today quite convinced that some of these people who are out on bail are some of the same people who are looting, shooting, raping and murdering their fellow Bahamians.
Of interest in this regard is some of what the prime minister had to say concerning the matter of bail and its role in the criminal justice system. As he noted, “It is absolutely alarming the number of crimes that are being committed by young men while they are out on bail awaiting trial for exactly the same offences! This is madness!”
As the prime minister expatiated on the topic of crime, he declaimed that “the level of violent crime in our society is simply unacceptable. The level of viciousness in the commission of murders and rapes and robberies in our society is simply intolerable. There is no other way to put it.
And he asked rhetorically, “Tell me: what gives these thugs the right to smash somebody’s front door down and then march up the stairs and rape a man’s wife right in front of him with a gun pressed against his head?
“What kind of animals, what kind of brute beasts have we created in this land? What kind of animal can chop a woman up right in front of her infant children? What kind of mindless savage can shoot someone in his head just because he looked at him the wrong way? What have we come to when you can walk all your days in the footsteps of the Lord, leading a good, decent and upright life, only to come face to face in your bedroom one night with someone who doesn’t only want the little money you have, he wants your life too – and for no reason at all, except for the diabolical thrill of seeing you die!
Prime Minister Christie also noted that it was his view that “our courts, I regret to say, have become, in all too many instances, a revolving door : you commit a crime; you get caught; you get charged; you get bail; you get out; and then the cycle of criminality starts all over again, never skipping a beat.”
If the prime minister is correct, this country has on its hands a very serious problem. The same conclusion applies if the prime minister is wrong in the conclusions he has reached concerning the so-called ‘revolving door’ analogy he used to describe and explain what he said was happening, or not happening in the Bahamian criminal justice system.
Editorial from The Bahama Journal
