Free National Movement (FNM) Leader Dr. Hubert Minnis yesterday urged the government to get serious about the country’s crime problem by having small laws enforced and “hanging” criminals.
Minnis spoke out after three men and a woman were killed in separate shootings between Friday and Monday.
Monday’s killing brought the year’s murder count to 77.
“We must enforce the law, but all laws from petty crimes straight up,” Minnis said.
“People must see us as being serious and no government will succeed until the public understands what law and order truly is.
“As for crime, the government must do whatever is necessary, expedite cases and hang individuals.
“You must hang, hanging is on the books.”
No one was hanged under the recent Ingraham administration.
Various landmark rulings of the Privy Council have made it increasingly difficult to carry out capital punishment.
There hasn’t been a hanging in The Bahamas since David Mitchell met his fate at the gallows on January 6, 2000.
The Bahamas hanged 50 men since 1929, according to records kept at Her Majesty’s Prisons. Five of them were hanged under previous Ingraham administrations; 13 were hanged under the 25-year rule of the Pindling government; and the remainder were executed between 1929 and 1967.
