Nothing is happening with capital punishment. It is not even being discussed. The government continues to defy the expressed ill of the people on this matter. Why?

There is much talk about reform and deterrence. Capital punishment is not concerned with reform or deterrence. Capital punishment is a matter of substituted revenge. The state is exacting revenge for the murder of a relative so individuals will not need to seek their own justice. It is as simple as that!

The alternative is for individuals to commit to take their own justice when hienous crimes are committed against their loved ones.

Sometimes there is no reforming. The family of the deceased should be the only ones who can forgive a murderer. We need the discipline to carry out justice.

Has the government completely abandoned capital punishment? Has the government ignored the law with respect to the time period for hanging a convicted murderer? Does the government lack the will to carry out the law?

We must watch very closely what the government does, not what it says. The government is busy making things cozy at the prison. What is the government doing to make life better for the victims of those in prison? Every day it is getting better and better for persons in prison. Crime does pay in the Bahamas.

Bahamians need to stand up and be heard on the issue of capital punishment. You or some member of your family may be the next victim!

We know that Minister Fred Mitchell opposes capital punishment. Minister Mitchell opposes violence in all forms except when it comes to the Great United States of America bombing poor, brown, almost defenseless people into oblivion. Then he favours violence of the worst sort. Is war not worse than capital punishment? If Minister Fred Mitchell can support war, especially a one-sided war, surely he can support capital punishment which involves the clinical disposal of a scum-bag that has comiitted some serious crime(s) which makes the majority of the peace-loving Bahamians lock themselves away in self-imposed prisons every night.

Minster Glynnis Hanna opposes capital punishment yet she does not say where she stands on victim's rights. Do you notice how they are quick to defend the criminal but they never speak of the victim? No one looks at the families of the murdered, raped, and mauled victims. No one cares how they eat, how they go to school, or how they bear up under the psychological trauma of having lost a loved father, mother, brother, sister, son or daughter in vicious, animalistic, senseless crimes. How silent can the PLP be? Do they think this issue will just go away while they parade their friends from international human rights groups in and out of the Bahamas telling us how barbaric we are? The PLP must heed the will of the people! The "or else" will follow.

Minister Alfred Sears must be jumping up and clicking his heels with glee every night. He must be so very happy that he is in a position to ensure that families of murdered victims receive no justice. They are all silent on stopping the burden on the taxpayers of all the murderers that they are building a luxury hotel for in Fox Hill. They cannot do anything for the poor; the treasury is broke. They cannot continue to support Bahamasair; the treasury is broke. They cannot do this and they cannot do that because the treasury is broke! But they surely can find the money to sustain the murderers on death row in Fox Hill. And now they want to give them cable television. I guess we can even expect to see some of them have their sentences commuted to life in prison or, God forbid, be released at Christmas. This is a time for redemption.

Prime Minster Perry Gladstone Christie always avoids answering directly the question of capital punishment. Well now we can watch how loudly his action speaks. We know that the buck stops with him. But we can see he is on the redemption track. He is out there to forgive the George Smiths of the Bahamas 7 times 7 times 7 times 7 ..... times. He wants to give them another chance. Does it make sense to give one good PLP a second or third chance, depending on how you are counting, when there are emminently qualified, capable and loyal PLPs who have not yet been given the first chance?

Perry's reasoning appears faulty but this must be because Perry and George have information that we do not have. If we knew what they know, we would understand. We might not agree, but we would understand.

Ultimately Perry is responsible. Let's see how long it will be before he carries out his first hanging. I bet it will not occur in the first 3-1/2 years of the PLP's reign. Ministers Mitchell, Hanna and Sears are too powerful for Prime Minister Christie to defy. The highly organized international movement that they have membership in will not tolerate hangings in the Bahamas.

The PLP repeats regularly how they will do what the people want. Well the people want the murderers to be hanged! What will Mr. Christie and his gang do about this?

I am certain that the Bahamian people would also like to be freed of customs duties and other government taxes and fees... However, they wish for that at what cost? Supposedly, the majority of Bahamians want capital punishment. Says who? Which poll has been conducted? When? What do the results say? I suggest that not only is the majority of the people not in support of capital punishment, but that they are largely undecided. It is the lack of capital punishment which causes its proponents to speak out and to do so LOUDLY! For the many Bahamians opposed to it, there is simply no need to do so when there is no one to be hanged... And for the many people undecided, they remain silent; they have not given it significant thought, or have filtered through the issues so long as the issue has not touched their lives. I think it a gross exaggeration and manipulation of the silence of the contented (undecided's and death penalty opponents) to suggest that the majority want capital punishment.
We abhor the criminal because life is God-given and no man has the right to extinguish it. If we are principled we must accept that that immutable law applies to the state equally so. God's judgment will visit upon us all. The state's responsibility with regard to murderers is to punish offenders, protect its citizens, and provide healing for the victim's family. Life imprisonment is a sufficient remedy. God has claimed vengeance for himself.

Welcome Rio,

I couldn’t have said it better myself.
God is the final judge and all must face Him.
As for the state of crime in this country; something has to be done to help detour people from committing crimes and if hanging will slow them down…. So be it.

Nothing will happen in terms of Capital Punishment because the Government of the Bahamas has no direction. There is nobody there that is willing to take a stand on any of the issues. Fred the Minister of Travel is never here.Perry ,the Minister of the Church and Select Committeeswon't chance it.Mother Pratt the Minister of Children who 've lost their way ,won't. When I invision a leader, I think of someone who is strong and willing to make tough decisions . My father told me no matter how good a farmer you are ,you can't grow eagles in your barn as chickens. When they are eggs they may fool some ,as chicks the may fool some , but what happens when it is time for the eagle to spread his wings and fly.Don't blame me 'i didn't vote PLP!!!!!!!!!!

Captial Punishment really need to be enforced in this country.

Look at that man who just got back to back 20 years sentence with a death sentence attached (correct me if i'm worng on that), don't you thing CP would go good for that.

When these guys get those sentence they figure out now that, they go in prison, be a good boy a few years they let them out. But the thing is when they do come out some (and i emphasis SOME) of them does be so pumped up, they be more educated about what they did wrong and how it suppose to have been done. They had years to think about it and believe you me, if it was a persons, look out.

Be careful Bahamas, our crimials might spread the word of their such good treatment and then we might have more to deal with than just bahaminas criminals. Other criminals who are much smarter and more wiser in that domain.

Until next time.....................

In the old days - the really old days, if you killed my family member, I would settle it by killing you. A member of your family might then kill me. And then a member of my family would avenge my death, and so it would continue. Our families would have a feud.

Enter left the state. It is not in the state's interest to lose so many of its contributors so the state says "we will avenge your wrongs. We will deliver justice to you. We will make the perpetrator pay!"

Now the state is not living up to its promises. In some cases it seems as though the state rewards the criminals!

Vengeance is an important part of justice!. The system is called a penal system because it is designed to punish.

There are those who wish to convert the penal system to a rehabilitation system. There is no evidence that we can rehabilitate anyone. When we release these people they generally go rape and kill some more.

How do we rehabilitate the victims of crime? How do we return the father who was murdered for his watch to his children? How do we return the child who was shot in the head while watching TV to his parents? How do we erase the trauma from the mother who was raped in front of her children or husband? How do we reconstruct the pyche of the man who was raped?

Vengeance may not heal, but justice demands it.

If you sit down and deliberately plot to commit a crime, and prepare to kill anyone who gets in your way, you should be executed in the most unkind way. And executions should be public!

HANG THEM HIGH.
This is how I feel about it and I want every one to know.
And whatever government promises to HANG THEM HIGH that will be the people to get my vote. These murdering young men do not have a heart and no sympathy should be given to them.

Capital Punishment can not be effective when it is not being used. We can sit back and say how inhumane it is and that God is the final judge, but i think that is the reason why God made the justice system.

How many lives have to be taken in order for something to be done, there are too many people on death row who senteces have or will be reduced to life because we cant decide to hang them or not.

The more we play around with these criminals the more they prove that they can do what they want, when they want it, why because the justice system works in their favor. Why not because if I can kill somebody and literally get away with it why not do it just for the pleasure of it.

I feel that we need to follow that of the "lex talliones" an eye for an eye. It's time for the Government to decide which side they want to take are they for Capital Punishment or not. If they are get the ball rolling and show these people that they mean business. Less talk and more action, the people voted for a change so lets see some of that change happening.

I think this Government will not carry out any form of capital punishment. Because you have a few of the front line figthers against capital punishment in our Government's Cabint. This Government has never been a believer in capital punishment. But we have to send a message to persons who believe that take a man life, without it being selfdefence, is right.

But we as nation must tred on this matter with utmost of caution. Meaning if the wrong man is sentence for a capital offence, and the punishment is administered ( hanged). Then later on we find that this indeed was the wrong person sentence how can we make this wrong right. We have to be very careful because once the person life is taken it can't be given back. \


But for those who are guilty without a shadow of a doubt, the punishment must be administered ASAP.