Diverting people from engaging in criminal activity has been tabled as a possible solution to reforming a criminal justice system.
This was the suggestion put forward by Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs, Dale Marshall, as he addressed the opening ceremony of the 7th Biennial Law Conference, being hosted at the Hilton Barbados Resort, under the theme Criminal Justice Reform in the Caribbean: Achieving a Modern Criminal Justice System.
“Our most innovative approach has nothing to do with the criminal justice system, but in finding creative ways of making sure that fewer people enter that pipeline,” the Attorney General said.
He noted that while consideration was given to enhance the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, increasing the size of the judiciary, and other measures, what really needed to happen was “to stop people from becoming criminals”.
Mr. Marshall contended that if a significant amount of resources were dedicated to diverting people away from entering the justice system, officials could then start to address the criminal justice problems in a different way.
“I urge you to look at the issues to view them from the unique perspective of small island states,” he told the delegates.
Mr. Marshall explained that small island states had “peculiar problems”, and used the example that a decision by Barbados to hire more judges may result in fewer nurses for the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
“We all have a very small pot and we have to decide how to use the ingredients in that pot with a minimum [amount] of waste,” the Attorney General proffered.
Meanwhile, Judge of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) and Chair of the CCJ Academy for Law, Justice Winston Anderson, lamented that the Caribbean was faced with “an alarming pandemic of crime and criminality”.
This, he said, has left citizens feeling unsafe in their homes, at work, and in public spaces, particularly the elderly, women, and girls.
However, he noted that accused persons being deprived of their freedom for between five and 15 years or more while on remand, was an unacceptable feature of the justice system, and must be reformed.
“There must be swift justice for the guilty so that there is a correlation between crime and punishment in the public perception. The innocent must not have their liberty and productive years sacrificed on the altar of inefficiency and disinterest,” Justice Anderson said. At the same time, he also made a call for all victims of crime to have “real justice”.
He shared that the objective of the conference was to allow the legal minds to share their experiences, identify best practices, and endorse a set of specific, concrete and realisable recommendations that will result in a significant improvement in the current system and way of doing things.