okay, okay, i can fully appreciate the distinction you make between first world and ghetto cultures at play, but isn't the purpose of death by hanging to make an example of deterrence to the outside community?

our last man sentenced to die, john higgs of sleepy harbour island NOT nassau (although he was living in nassau at the time he killed his wife and buried her in the stairwell of their house), opted to have razor blades smuggled in the night before he was scheduled to hang ... and he slit his own throat instead of soiling his pants in a public square. no public deterrent there, as he took matters into his own hands. quite literally.

so what's the point of the penalty again?

Yorick, I agree with you there that most of the criminal element do not fear Fox Hill Prison. After living in a very ghetto area in Nassau, I also agree that the criminal element does fear death as well. I will not dispute this. The one thing you are forgetting is that most of these very same criminals don't believe that they will be caught. This means they have nothing to fear at all since they know they can commit the act with no form of retribution from society.

I think education is definitely the key here and we are missing a crucial step in the whole process. There is obviously some element present in the US (or Bahamian) culture that isn't present in a country like Canada. It is right next to the US, just like us, and yet the number of murders they experience in comparison is exponentially smaller than that of the US. These are issues that one would expect the minister of National Security to investigate. Whatever method we have been using for the past many years is obviously not working. It didn't work when we had capital punishment in the past and it won't work if we bring it back unless we change fundamental aspects of our society.

Hang 'em High!!

Sadaam Did it for years, hung them, shot them, gassed them, and look, they were crime free .. :p :friday:

I think the government should re-institute hanging due to the fact the there is too much murder .I don't know why they stop it in the first place anyway.Saying it is inhumane stupid. If you commit the crime especially murder you should be hang for taking some else life. Its on the books .The gov't should move forward in re-insitituting hanging even if they just do one for now to let the people know that they are serious. It will teach others a lesson and example to others. one scarfice to scare others

I dont feel the same, hanging reminds me of lynchings. Why not lethal injection if you want to kill people. If "society" wants to reinstitute hanging then "society" is practing hypocrisy because it failed the "potential hangees"
We have to think why are these people partaking in social deviance? Killing people doesn't solve our problems because all it does it decreases the population. the way its looking a lot of young men will be hanged.
I believe in preemptive strikes get to them, reach out to them before they come to cause you harm.

Simple answers don't solve complex situations, they only cover and mask them.

you know yorick...your whole argument on cultural relativism is valid. i agree, in theory, that whats good for some, is not good for all. therefore, certain things might work in some countries - based on whats culturally accepted and expected. i do not believe on forcing your particular views on others. it happened with colonialism. it happens constantly with religion. so i understand and agree as far as that goes. in this particular situation, however, i cannot accept that 'theory'. i cannot accept 'capital punishment is good for bahamas because of our culture/type of crimes we face'. i cannot accept, we may as well kill them, because they are heartless. why? because this way of thinking is totally inapplicable (in the circumstances) purely because we are dealing with snuffing out a human life.

I think education is definitely the key here and we are missing a crucial step in the whole process. There is obviously some element present in the US (or Bahamian) culture that isn't present in a country like Canada. It is right next to the US, just like us, and yet the number of murders they experience in comparison is exponentially smaller than that of the US. These are issues that one would expect the minister of National Security to investigate. Whatever method we have been using for the past many years is obviously not working. It didn't work when we had capital punishment in the past and it won't work if we bring it back unless we change fundamental aspects of our society.

the element is the cold weather?

Jim and CG,

This is not the US or Canada. Those are first-world nations with much larger populations. Take a look at the most recent killings in Bahamian news, all of the perpetrators were caught without any doubt as to their identity. This is a small nation, not a nation of millions. Usually when something really bad happens, everyone knows exactly "whodunit"!

Take for example the recent brutal killing of a woman softball player (Moxey) by her jealous boyfriend. He beat her so badly that he dislocated her skull from her spine. He then had the audacity to take her to the hospital. Might I add that she was the one who got him released early from prison for the murder of his ex-wife's lover (through our judicial board of "mercy", can you believe it?)

The example above is the type of case that I speak of. Clear cut, violent criminals where there is no doubt of their inability to fit into this society. It would be a waste of taxpayer's money to keep persons like that alive. Hang 'em!

He should be the first to be made an example of. This is a third-world nation with no room for first-world rationale or sympathy. It was organizations from the US and the UK who begged us to change our capital punishment laws, but how can they compare us to their more advanced societies? Caribbean violence is perpetrated by an entirely different animal. The message of prevention has to be simpler, and far more barbaric to be effective, since citizens of a developing nation are not socialized in the same manner as those of a first world nation. This is REALITY, not fiction. In developing nations there is a socialization process that we must go through. First-world nations expect us to skip over these stages of development, for our own good, but it only proves to be detrimental to our societies.They want us to be "civilized" like they are, forgetting the many years of their own violent history that they had to go through and learn exactly what worked for them. We cannot expect completely different cultures to have a one-size-fits-all approach.

Strategies that work in first-world nations are supplemented also by social programs and rehabilitative measures that are the best in the world. We do not have such luxuries. The minute we put even a small-time criminal in our hellhole of a prison, there is little doubt that they are coming out the same way, if not worse than they went in.

Outside opinions noted, but no one can claim to know our people better than our own. If we attempt to adopt some first-world rehabilitative approach to "change" some of our criminals, they no doubt will laugh at it in scorn.

I'll say it again - Hang em high! It might sound barbaric to those outside this nation, who do not see the uncaring, unfeeling looks in the eyes of some of our more violent youth, but it needs to be done.

...so that's the excuse? our LDC standing...please give me a break! It's as if your accepting inferiority, we are dreadfully exposed to the "first world" so we know better, most of the people who set legal precedent in this "third world" Bahamas are educated and have lived in the "first world" so they know. It all starts with a good foundation so we dont have to get this far.

How can we be ever taken seriously if we dont want to be held to the same standard?

Pre-emptive Strikes!

lets put it this way, if they are serious about the crime problem, there are alof of other things they can do. Now, if they really want to "scare" criminals, trying excecution, then they really need to learn DNA testing, and proper investigation, otherwise too many innocent people may end up getting executed ..

I know how the Cops think here ... here yah go ..

I had an aquaintance that got in a fight in a club. (This is some 15 years ago BTW). Anyway, so he got in the fight with these 2 guys as soon as he saw them. I ended up breaking up the fight, or trying to do so. The cops came grabbed all of them, then grabbed me, even though the 2 other guys, one who I also knew, told the Cops I wasnt involved and just trying to break up the fight, but the COps wouldnt listen. Their thinking was because it was 2 of them, and then the other guy and me there, i must have been with the other guy, cause all of us were white. Got out of it but not after spending 2 nights in Central!! Also had the opportunity to see a young teen boy getting the crap beaten out of him by 2x 6'5 CID officers while he was handcuffed to a chair.

Its the last time I ever broke up any fights or altercations in this country ..

cat o nines, yes ... capital punishment NO. makes no sense, given the amount of mistakes we regularly make.

cat o 9 tails remind me of slavery, my ancestors were beating for far to long that we shouldnt subject mostly black people to these beatings especially at the hands of other black people. more strenuous labor activity should be encouraged. "sleep late, loose weight" neon pink walls in the prison, make men wear skirts make them "suffer" in other ways. beatings solves nothing.

Its the last time I ever broke up any fights or altercations in this country ..

yes i told my lfriend about playing "Hero" leave these people business alone I say

cat o 9 tails remind me of slavery, my ancestors were beating for far to long that we shouldnt subject mostly black people to these beatings especially at the hands of other black people. more strenuous labor activity should be encouraged. "sleep late, loose weight" neon pink walls in the prison, make men wear skirts make them "suffer" in other ways. beatings solves nothing.


Don't get on that slavery trip. A lot of these kids need a good cut-behind as it is. It definitely kept me on the right track and I don't have any "psychological scars" or bear any "suppressed anger" against my folks. In fact I am glad that my parents cared enough to steer me in the right direction when my head was too hard to listen to words alone.

Using your rationale I guess we shouldn't hang 'em either because a lot of slaves were "hanged".

I wholeheartedly agree with the concept that a proper social education is one of the only ways to prevent /reduce crime, but currently education is not the focus of this government. Also there are too many "loose ends" out of the reach of the educational system as it is.

The moral of the story behind capital punishment is that justice is served at the end of the day without wasting the taxpayer's money over the course of many years or allowing devious criminals to return back to society to kill again (like the recent Moxey killing). And yes, it will serve as a deterrent to the general public.

From the opposition that I have seen so far against capital punishment, I can guess that none of you have ever seen how cold-hearted these guys can get, or how they attack their victims like a pack of wild dogs. Those who do not know the mentality of the criminals in this society will always unknowingly protect their existence. This is why the government probably will not reinstate hangings and will continue to make excuses for their constituents. They have multiple time bombs sitting in their laps and are ignoring them for the sake of votes. It's just a matter of time before the entire situation explodes in their faces and I hope they go to their graves regretting what they have done to this nation. What's that saying they have? Oh yeah, here it is: "Principles don't put food on the table."

Soft measures against hardened criminals will only embolden them. Good should never protect evil, even out of pity for their souls.

Don't get on that slavery trip. A lot of these kids need a good cut-behind as it is. It definitely kept me on the right track and I don't have any "psychological scars" or bear any "suppressed anger" against my folks. In fact I am glad that my parents cared enough to steer me in the right direction when my head was too hard to listen to words alone.
Using your rationale I guess we shouldn't hang 'em either because a lot of slaves were "hanged".
I wholeheartedly agree with the concept that a proper social education is one of the only ways to prevent /reduce crime, but currently education is not the focus of this government. Also there are too many "loose ends" currently out of the hands of the educational system as it is.
The moral of the story behind capital punishment is that justice is served at the end of the day without wasting the taxpayer's money over the course of many years or allowing devious criminals to return back to society to kill again (like the recent Moxey killing). And yes, it will serve as a deterrent to the general public. From the opposition that I have seen against capital punishment, I can guess that none of you have ever seen how cold-hearted these guys can get, or how they attack their victims like a pack of wild dogs. Those who do not know the mentality of the criminals in this society will always unknowingly protect their existence. This is why the government will probably not reinstate hangings and will continue to make excuses for their constituents. They have multiple time bombs sitting in their laps and are ignoring them for the sake of votes. It's just a matter of time before the entire situation explodes in their faces and I hope they go to their graves regretting what they have done to this nation.
Soft measures against hardened criminals will only embolden them. Good should never protect evil, even out of pity for their souls.

what kind of message does it send to the international community? Amnesty International down our back isnt enough? Our problems should not simply be solved by killing people. Some people have mental issues. some people need to take their meds. For some, the "signs" are always evident, without knowing the specifics of the Moxey case I am sure she was beaten a few times before her ultimate demise...jealous rage was a factor and this man could plead temporary insanity, (not giving his defense counsel any ideas, I hope)

All Im saying is premptive strikes save lives: the victims and the assailants

Don't get on that slavery trip. A lot of these kids need a good cut-behind as it is. It definitely kept me on the right track and I don't have any "psychological scars" or bear any "suppressed anger" against my folks. In fact I am glad that my parents cared enough to steer me in the right direction when my head was too hard to listen to words alone.
Using your rationale I guess we shouldn't hang 'em either because a lot of slaves were "hanged".
I wholeheartedly agree with the concept that a proper social education is one of the only ways to prevent /reduce crime, but currently education is not the focus of this government. Also there are too many "loose ends" out of the reach of the educational system as it is.
The moral of the story behind capital punishment is that justice is served at the end of the day without wasting the taxpayer's money over the course of many years or allowing devious criminals to return back to society to kill again (like the recent Moxey killing). And yes, it will serve as a deterrent to the general public.
From the opposition that I have seen so far against capital punishment, I can guess that none of you have ever seen how cold-hearted these guys can get, or how they attack their victims like a pack of wild dogs. Those who do not know the mentality of the criminals in this society will always unknowingly protect their existence. This is why the government probably will not reinstate hangings and will continue to make excuses for their constituents. They have multiple time bombs sitting in their laps and are ignoring them for the sake of votes. It's just a matter of time before the entire situation explodes in their faces and I hope they go to their graves regretting what they have done to this nation. What's that saying they have? Oh yeah, here it is: "Principles don't put food on the table."
Soft measures against hardened criminals will only embolden them. Good should never protect evil, even out of pity for their souls.


I have lived the experience you speak of first hand. When I was a kid my uncle got killed. The criminals were so terrible that they hung him from the balcony of his parents house. Everyone in the community knew who did it. Naturally, in our corrupt society, the guys got off. Do I still want them dead to this day? Yes. I would love to see them hang. But at the same time I am not willing to put a potentially innocent person through that so I can get revenge. I agree that in those cases where "everyone knows" who committed the murder that capital punishment should be allowed. This, however, only brings in another problem because many times when "everyone knows" who committed the act, it is only speculation and the person might be innocent.

Since it has been proven in many studies that capital punishment does not deter crime, I wonder what would be the point of reinstating it? It will only make the criminals better at not getting caught or better at framing someone else.

cat o 9 tails remind me of slavery, my ancestors were beating for far to long that we shouldnt subject mostly black people to these beatings especially at the hands of other black people. more strenuous labor activity should be encouraged. "sleep late, loose weight" neon pink walls in the prison, make men wear skirts make them "suffer" in other ways. beatings solves nothing.


This is funny. So the tail reminds you of slavery so we should never do that again. I can respect that. Public hangings remind you of lynching so we should never do that again. Again I can agree. But if we take that route as use that as the sole reason to change our actions, then why not say that bleaching is a result of slavery and a post-colonial mentality that black is bad so we should not allow persons in the country to bleach their skin. Oh, and let us not forget weave or using perm in your hair. Not to mention our political and legal system, so lets do away with that too....