Here of late with public attention riveted on crime and the fear it has spawned, there has been a barrage of tough talk about declaring war on this social problem. While this rhetoric has done much to placate certain sections of opinion in The Bahamas, in the long run and in the grand scheme of things, this talk will count for little. If the government is to go beyond rhetoric, it must address the problem at its roots, one of which – no doubt – is the woeful incapacity of the nation’s judicial arm of government.
As a consequence of its system-wide flaws, justice is often delayed and denied.
Apart from our often stated conviction that more effort should be placed on creating better schools and other moralizing institutions, the point must be emphasized that the public must be made to see that they have to assume a bigger share of the burden for getting good things done.
Even in those cases where critics declaim about the need for the police to follow a policy of zero tolerance towards all crimes, the question of capacity and costs arise. The bottom line is there is no panacea for the ills facing The Bahamas.
We have on occasion bemoaned the fact that The Bahamas is poorly governed and many of its residents and citizens ill-disciplined, uncouth and unruly. Today we go one step further and make the point that successive administrations have failed to provide the police and other uniformed officers the level of support they need to get their work done.
While no government can be faulted for the level of rhetoric employed in the verbal assault on criminals, there is a deeply held view in certain circles that regardless of label, the conclusion is obvious that successive governments have adopted a laissez-faire attitude to certain kinds of lawbreaking. And, too, there is the perennial complaint by key people in the judiciary that they do not have the level of the support they need in order to get their work done.
The matter concerning the Bail Act is a case in point. Despite repeated calls from the police and a broad cross section of Bahamians, little has been done to meaningfully address this issue.
What is interesting about this question is that most Bahamians are so jaded that they only take note of this omission when someone out on bail commits another horrific offence. Then it is simply too late. Wisdom after the fact is of no consequence to the victim.
Interestingly also is the fact that successive governments have gone into overdrive in their efforts to demonstrate their commitment to ‘fighting crime’. Unfortunately, despite one commission after the other, one select committee after the other and any number of fact-finding missions, little of lasting value is achieved.
The point we reinforce is that while political regimes dither and dawdle in enforcing existing laws, the rot of indiscipline continues. As it does the attentive public is regaled with story after story about how easy it is to break the law in The Bahamas. Whether the talk is about people who break zoning regulations or about how easy it is to buy or rent a gun, there is a pervasive sense that this country, particularly New Providence, is in the grips of a crisis which should have been foreseen. Indeed, there is in the community a pervasive fear that at any time anyone can be victimised by homegrown thugs and terrorists.
While some of this talk about crime borders on the hysterical, fear is a fact of life in many communities.
What makes the situation in these crime infested areas extremely complex is that many of the thugs and terrorists who do come in for scrutiny are men and women who work for big time drug dealers and other criminals who routinely escape detection because of the veneer of social respectability behind which they hide.
While there is no denying the link between elite criminals and their low life counterparts, the fact remains that it is this ‘low life’ crew which is directly responsible for much of the horror on this nation’s streets.
This situation cannot be allowed to persist. If something is not done to address these and other issues facing The Bahamas as it tries to find the basis for civilized way of life in these islands, ruin beckons.
As in times past, we reiterate the point that crime should not be treated as a partisan matter and nor should concerned citizens be obliged to ‘clean up’ one street or the other.
While these efforts are to be appreciated for their purity of motive, it should not be forgotten that when persons are charged with committing offences, they are to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
The conclusion follows that these people should not be held in limbo for any inordinate amount of time. It also follows that while in the protective custody of the state, they must be treated humanely. All of this underscores the core point we make that if justice is delayed, it is also being denied.
Obviously, therefore, the way ahead calls for the prime minister and his government to deal with the main matter which is the incapacity of the judiciary in The Bahamas.
A poorly resourced Attorney General office, inadequate courts, inadequate policing, inadequate prisons and remand centres together impede the functioning of one of the most important branches of government. As a consequence of this gross neglect of one of the branches of government, successive regimes in The Bahamas have reaped harvests of shame.
While some might point the blaming finger on Prime Minister Christie, there is blame enough for the Free National Movement’s signal failure to ‘break the back of crime’ in their decade at the helm.
What makes the current situation extremely difficult is that Prime Minister Christie is obliged to make do with less and less resources at a time when demands on the criminal justice system are increasing. While difficult, the situation facing the government is not hopeless. The government can make significant progress on the crime front. If, for example, it were to work more closely with its social partners, it would be able to expand the reach of its efforts.
In the instance of judicial reform and the need to enhance the capabilities of that branch of government an effort must be mounted to bring it into the modern era. And if this is to be done, business, labour and other social partners must be resolved to help pay for this enhancement of capacity. Anything less would smack of tinkering and manipulation.
Editorial, The Bahama Journal
