RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Ex­press­ing dis­ap­point­ment with some as­pects of the CARI­COM 15-point plan, chair­man of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers (CR­BC), Vivek Char­ran, says the death penal­ty should have been made the ul­ti­mate pun­ish­ment for homi­cide and gun-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence.

In re­sponse to the re­gion­al crime talks, Char­ran al­so said the plan ham­mered out at this week's re­gion­al crime sym­po­sium should have in­clud­ed an in­te­grat­ed re­gion­al Coast Guard sys­tem and im­ple­men­ta­tion of re­gion­al safe hous­es for wit­ness­es.

The CR­BC chair­man ex­pressed sup­port for a planned over­haul of the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Sys­tem, say­ing that al­low­ing the army to act legal­ly against gangs with­out hav­ing to re­sort to a state of emer­gency was al­so a good pol­i­cy.

"We have no­ticed that no di­rect dis­cus­sion about the death penal­ty but as a de­ter­rent we feel the death penal­ty must be the ul­ti­mate pun­ish­ment for homi­cides and gun-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence," he not­ed.

Char­ran added: "We see too many crim­i­nals pass­ing through the pe­nal sys­tem to com­mit more crimes."

The CR­BC head ex­plained that many con­victs are re-ab­sorbed in­to gangs and con­tin­ue to ex­e­cute crime from be­hind prison walls, as "a badge of ho­n­our among crim­i­nals".

He al­so praised the ini­tia­tive to in­crease foren­sic ca­pa­bil­i­ties re­gion­al­ly and na­tion­al­ly but rec­om­mend­ed that CARI­COM de­vel­op a re­gion­al wit­ness pro­tec­tion pro­gram, where the wit­ness could be housed in neigh­bour­hood ter­ri­to­ries un­til they tes­ti­fy.

“Crime from prison, as well as the at­tack on prison of­fi­cers, must al­so be part of the CARI­COM dis­cus­sions,” he added.

Char­ran al­so said the no­tion of hold­ing Amer­i­can gun man­u­fac­tur­ers ac­count­able for gun-based homi­cides in the re­gion was far-fetched.

He rec­om­mend­ed the greater use of tech­nol­o­gy in­clud­ing scan­ning, and de­tec­tion de­vices such as swab­bing de­vices.  He al­so called for the greater use of K9 dogs to de­tect con­tra­band.

Char­ran main­tains Coast Guard bod­ies in CARI­COM coun­tries should work co­op­er­a­tive­ly to pa­trol the seas, not­ing that Amer­i­can gun man­u­fac­tur­ers do not man­u­fac­ture guns specif­i­cal­ly for them to be shipped to the Caribbean.

"What we ap­pear to be see­ing is a pass­ing on of the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for sys­tems that are not op­er­at­ing ef­fi­cient­ly. The po­lice are be­ing blamed, Amer­i­can gun man­u­fac­tur­ers are be­ing blamed, the ju­di­cia­ry is be­ing blamed and as a busi­nessper­son it is alarm­ing," Char­ran said.

He al­so said there seem to be con­stant ref­er­ences to white-col­lar crime and busi­ness links, which were un­fair to law-abid­ing busi­ness­peo­ple.

"Prof­it-mak­ing busi­ness­es do not need to in­dulge in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty as there is no sus­tain­able in­come flow that can be de­rived from crime with­out its ob­vi­ous risks," he ex­plained.

He called on the Po­lice Ser­vice to im­prove its de­tec­tion and con­vic­tion rate, not­ing that the au­thor­i­ties should work to­geth­er rather than pass the blame.

"The po­lice are the last line of de­fence and the first to face the bru­tal re­al­i­ty of crime. They are the ones who are in the trench­es at war with the gangs and crim­i­nals, but they are not the on­ly part of the sys­tem that needs to be fixed," Char­ran as­sert­ed.

He not­ed that crim­i­nals will al­ways win if the au­thor­i­ties do not work co­op­er­a­tive­ly to re­duce re­gion­al crime.