A Bahamian lawyer believes that the Bahamas Democratic Movement leader’s call for castration and the death penalty as a deterrent for rapists and murderers was merely to gain political mileage.
Speaking out against the increase in violent crime, Cassius Stuart, the BDM’s leader told The Tribune over the weekend that a strong message must be sent to criminals that “they are no longer tolerated or accepted in our society.”
“Over the world, even in the first world nations such as in the United States and the United Kingdom there have been instances when innocent men and women have been put in prison only to discover years later that they were wrongly imprisoned,” said lawyer Paul D. Moss II. “What Mr. Stuart is suggesting can be catastrophic for an innocent person.”
Mr. Moss said that those forms of punishment – castration and the death penalty – are “primitive and outdated.” Instead, he said, the root cause of higher levels of crime should be examined.
Archbishop Drexel Gomez also disagreed with Mr. Stuart’s suggestions. He thinks it is contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Fayne Thompson, a Nassau-based lawyer, understood Mr. Stuart’s sentiments, but does not think that he is looking at the real factors in determining how to tackle crime.
“Crime is a social and economic problem. To address crime we need to address the needs of people.”
Source: Tiffany Grant, The Tribune
