A report on the administration of justice in The Bahamas ...and improving the justice system in The Bahamas

IDB Concerned With Bahamas Justice System

by Ianthia Smith
The Bahama Journal




Officials at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) have expressed major concerns with the administration of justice in The Bahamas, particularly as it relates to the low conviction rate and the fact that more than 300 accused murderers are out on bail.

In fact, the IDB is so concerned with the dismal statistics that the organisation has pledged to pump $250,000 into improving the justice system in The Bahamas.

In a recent report, the IDB said during the 2005 to 2009 period only 5.1 per cent of murder cases resulted in convictions, adding that within the last five years, 305 accused murderers have been released on bail.

“This situation can partly explain why The Bahamas, although superior to the regional average, has recently shown a marked decline in its values for the world governance indicator related to the rule of law,” the document added.

That figure dropped from more than 85 per cent in 2007 to just over 65 per cent in 2011.

The report went on to point out that in The Bahamas there is consensus about the limited institutional capacity of the justice system to respond to the public’s demands and added that this situation is contributing to the recent dramatic increase in incidents of violence and crimes that remain unresolved amid an increasing judicial backlog and a diminishing number of convictions.

“Today, few people doubt that sustainable development depends on the credibility of the legal system, the quality of the legal framework, the effective protection of property rights and the honesty, effectiveness and efficiency of the agencies in charge of applying the law to specific cases,” the document added.

“To properly perform its role, a justice system should also be expeditious, which means that the system effectively completes cases in a reasonable time.”

It is for that reason that the IDB has approved technical cooperation for a pilot project to support the government’s Swift Justice Programme and has committed to giving The Bahamas $250,000 and an additional $24,000 local counterpart funding, to assist with this fight.

To improve court reporting and transcript generation, which the IDB notes still consists of a transcriber, while the modern digital court reporting includes broadcast quality microphones and digital recorders, the IDB has committed $110,00 while another $77,000 will be to support the implementation of an integration justice information system with an efficient business model that will seek to strengthen cooperation, coordination and communication among the Attorney General’s Office, the police and the judiciary and $66,000 will go towards the reduction of the Supreme Court’s backlog.

But with this technical cooperation comes risks, the IDB noted that the government and judiciary may not be sufficiently coordinated, there may be difficult interaction between the different government agencies as well as delays in execution due to a lack of knowledge and experience with IDB-financed operations.

November 20, 2013

Jones Bahamas

Crime in The Bahamas

A Blight of Pathology and Crime
The Bahama Journal Editorial


By way of both preface and prologue, today we join our voice to all those that today sigh, cry and lament for a nation that is losing its way.  The evidence is abundant that very many Bahamians are already lost; some of them bought – lock, stock and barrel – by new slavers.

This time around, the new slavery is one that calls on so very many people to get rich or die trying.  The new tyranny calls on people who have disputes to leave no stone turned in their perfervid quest for what they think is justice delivered their way and on the spot.

Compounding the matter at hand is that collective delusion concerning the role the police are supposed to be making in this regard.

Day in and day out we are regaled with one long story after the other from this or that police spokesperson concerning the latest outrage.

To date, all of this has been either warmed over self-congratulation on the part of the police or some of the most wonderful nonsense ever chatted by anyone we know.

We have heard it said that crime is the fever chart of a sick society.  As we see it, this statement speaks truth.

It might be very useful for us to analyze crime in The Bahamas as if it was one of our major public health issues.

Crime and social health are intimately connected.  The more criminalized the society, the greater the degree of social pathology.

In every country, to a greater or lesser extent, violence blights lives and undermines health.  Acknowledging this, in 1996 the 49th World Health Assembly adopted a resolution (WHA49.25) declaring violence a major and growing public health problem across the world.

Of note is the fact that the resolution ended by calling for a plan of action for progress towards a science based public health approach to preventing violence.  The World Health Organization defines violence as the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or a group or community, that either results in, or has a high likelihood of resulting in, injury, death, psychological harm, mal-development, or deprivation.

In just the past six years – coterminous with the so-called war against terror – millions of people have died as a result of violence. Many more have suffered injury.

Of the deaths, tens of thousands were suicides, almost a third were homicides.  In addition, tens of thousands of children were slaughtered.

Note well that our own country continues to experience some of the effects of this dread mix of pathology and crime.  Here we note that, as crime cascades throughout our archipelago; some of our people are beginning to wonder whether there is truth in the proposition that, the criminal element is large; that it is violent and that, in case after case, they have been able to baffle the police.

Indeed, such has been the insidious flow of this onslaught that, few Bahamians are today any longer outraged when they hear about the newest low to which some criminals can go.  Instead, what we do get is some variant on the conclusion that, things such as these are to be expected in these last and evil days.

As we see things -- Such has been the extent to which rape, mayhem, murder and other dastardly crimes against the person and property now pervade public consciousness; few Bahamians take note of the fact that there are –quite literally speaking – murderers, rapists, thieves and other such thugs smack-dab in the midst of the likes of them.

This, in turn, has to do with the fact that, very many of these god-awful crimes sometimes remain unsolved; and as they recede from the public’s agenda of the moment; even more crimes are committed.

Commonsense alone suggests that, some of these crimes might well be the handiwork of some of these ‘successful’ criminals.

And so, like others who now despair, we wonder whether those in charge of the police force are themselves seized of the enormity of this conjecture; particularly as they chat here, there and sometimes seemingly everywhere about zero-tolerance and intelligence-driven policing.

Yet again, we wonder.

Evidently, then, while crime remains one of this nation’s premier public safety issues; it is also a seriously pressing health issue.

As a public health issue, the search for solution requires much more than policing.  In addition, we take it as a given that, policing always works best in situations where people are disciplined and therefore self-policed.

You really do not have to be a genius or rocket scientist to figure out that once you have to call in the police, the game is already over.

There is also the real probability that crime persists precisely because we have become collectively delinquent; and that we routinely flout both the law of God and the law of man.

November 16th, 2010

The Bahama Journal Editorial