THERE’S BEEN some debate recently regarding the releasing of prisoners before their prescribed time expires.
That occurs when the Mercy Committee exercises its discretion and as the name suggests, shows a great measure of leniency towards the imprisoned one. In many instances the recipients of this mercy are those who were banished for life. Some cases will involve a reduction in the sentences. That is mercy.
However, should not some of that consideration go towards the families of the victims? It is hard, I imagine, for a relative of a victim to encounter the killer whom they thought would be away for a long time out on the streets.
I cannot, nor would I wish to have to, comprehend the emotional turmoil that would accompany the initial sighting of the person who caused you grief to last a lifetime. A thought should be spared for the families.
I say that because the Mercy Committee is based more on feelings than on law. The law already had its place – in the beginning when the magistrate ruled at the lower court that there was a case to answer, at High Court when the jury returned the guilty verdict and the judge passed sentence, and at the Court of Appeal stage when the conviction and sentence were affirmed.
Anything after that is . . . mercy.
Therefore, if you are going to take into account the feelings of the offenders, examine their life from top to bottom while they were confined, and decide whether they are fit to receive compassion, spare a thought for those on the outside.
Once, a murderer was released after being spared a lifetime behind bars; it was the worst decision I thought. He picked right back up with his violent behaviour as though the ten years had absolutely no effect on him.
There were some – I usually recognise them because I spent a long time covering court – who made good on the second chance and proved to be decent law-abiding citizens. There were others that only divine intervention could have changed them, and others who were stopped only when fate dealt them a similar deadly blow.
The victims’ families, on the other hand, I’ve witnessed also go to both extremes – from mild-mannered citizens to monsters because of the trauma associated with incident. Some consideration must go their way too.
If we are looking at mercy, it must extend to the victims, recognising that it takes a long time to get over losing a loved one. All the interviewing and preparation to ensure that when the prisoners are returned to society, they have people and a neighbourhood to welcome them, should be accompanied by consideration of how the relatives of the victims felt.
It is a sad situation, but in most cases the victims’ relatives do not have a voice during the sentencing phase and none when the cases goes before the Mercy Committee. That system needs to be adjusted.
Remembering Dr Shorey
I FIRST MET Dr Leonard Shorey between 1987 and 1989 while at the Barbados Community College (BCC). He was one of the tutors for the mass communications course.
He was a pleasant man, a gentleman. He was conducting one of the English courses and in between the academics, he offered up some advice on life. One of the first things he revealed to us that stuck with me over the years was that he always spoke standard English to his children, even before they entered school. That, he explained, set them on the path of speaking and writing that way, without a second thought as to subject and verb agreement, parts of speech or other fundamentals of English.
It was a strategy I employed with my own daughter and found it worked superbly; standard English in the home while anything goes outside. A lot of parents do this, I believe.
However, there was another tangible example from the goodly English expert that I cherished above all others. In that class there were a few of us who did not own vehicles, nor could we command a ride as many of the youth do today. As a result, when classes finished around 7 p.m. we, (me, Samantha, Cora and Joanne) would make our way down Government Hill to catch the by-pass bus heading north.
Early on and just once, Dr Shorey observed us making our way to public transportation and asked where we lived. Since none of our addresses coincided with his, he offered the next best thing – to drop us on the route in time to catch the arriving bus.
After that we never had to ask again; he would always offer and set us down at our spot. Once he told us that he had children and would want someone to look out for them too.
It was an act of kindness that always remained with me and became a treasured memory of my time at BCC.
