Your money or your life?

An issue which seems to be troubling the government over their decision to reinstate the death penalty, is the worry that foreign governments will stop making aid contributions.

At a time when Jamaica’s economy needs every penny it can get its’ hands on, the coffers will undoubtedly miss this donor money. Senator Ronald Robinson says that this should not stop Jamaica from driving down the capital punishment road.

I have been listening to a discussion among Jamaican prisoners on Freefm radio – speaking from GP, Kingston’s notorious male prison. I posted about this station and what they do on this blog before.

The prisoners spoke a lot of sense.

They raise the point that putting the death penalty on the table could actually increase the murder rate as murderers seek to “get rid” of any witnesses to their crime.

They also say that the justice system is in no way rigorous enough to ensure that innocent men will not die. The interview of these guys speaking will be broadcast on the BBC World Service as part of the Your Story project.

Voting for the death penalty

Jamaica has ended its moratorium on the death penalty which has been in place since 1988.  Now that’s been lifted after a free vote in Jamaica’s Parliament, where 34 voted for bringing the death penalty back, 15 were against it and 10 didn’t vote either way, the nine men on death row have something to look forward to.

I personally don’t think you can link the rise in murders with the fact the death penalty was frozen but I guess we will see whether it does or not now.

I would like to hear from the shottas and the dons whether they’ll be thinking twice about whether to organise that drive by shooting now.

Is jamaica’s justice system rigorous enough and does it contain enough checks and balances to ensure that the people wrongly convicted or crimes do not lose their lives?  i know personally of two people who served sentences for crimes they did not commit.  But then, they had committed other crimes so they did not feel too aggrieved about it and they were not facing death either.

Jamaican Prisoners Radio

At the moment, I am mainly listening to freefm, a radio station broadcasting from the General Penitentiary (GP) on South Camp Road in Kingston.  Inmates and staff are running the shows.  At the moment they are talking about kids being abused and parents pimping out their children.

You can listen to Freefm here.

They have a blog too, you can read more about the project here

It’s a strange discussion to have.  They talk about how to stop the violence that is going on against children.  It’s not very constructive – they are saying to hang those who commit these crimes!

I am trying to get more photos from inside the prison.

It’s interesting to hear the real opinions of men and young men who are currently there behind bars.

They have also mentioned their pleasure at seeing Obama get the top job!