BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – FOR many years, St. Kitts-Nevis and the wider Caribbean have been experiencing problems with pretrial detention and, only last month (May), this topic had generated lengthy discussions on local talk shows and articles by some media houses.
Most recently, however, Kittitian-born Head of the Caribbean Court of Justice, the Rt. Hon. Sir Dennis Byron had commented on the situation.
According to the Trinidad & Tobago Express, Sir Dennis, who identified the breakdown in morals and values in individuals as a factor of crime, said: “One of the greatest travesties is to be found in the management of pretrial detention.”
He was at the time speaking at the Dana Saroop Seetahal Symposium: Re-engineering the Criminal Justice System, at the University of the West Indies St. Augustine Campus.
“The extraordinary length of pretrial detention must be regarded as a human-rights issue and should be targeted as a pressing priority. Courts in our region have often heard cases after the suspects were imprisoned for a period longer than if he had been tried and convicted immediately.
“A recent report commissioned by the UN Development Programme, which examined human development and better in seven Caribbean countries, found five of them reported occupancy levels well above a hundred percent of capacity, almost one third of the population were persons being held on remand awaiting trial and one instance the figure was as high as 50 percent,” the media house quoted him as saying
“Only two prisons had facilities that meet international standards,” he added.
Addressing the approach to the current spiralling crime in the Caribbean, Byron said a holistic approach must be taken in order to deal with it throughout the region, but the use of advance technology by police is needed in crime detection and its prevention.
“There must be holistic change among all major players. In relation to the police, the level of crime detection has to be addressed. In recent times the regional rate hovers at around ten percent. And for small societies this is a cause for concern.
“We, in our region, have serious work to do. Technology must become the handmaiden of the police in addressing spiralling crime - wireless surveillance, GPS systems, PDA devices, in-car computers must enhance and eventually replace police reports, station diaries and eyewitness testimonies. Such advances will not only assist in crime detection, but also crime prevention thereby ushering the new advancements in techno¬logy,” Byron said.
This, he noted, must be coupled with adequate technical training of the police and public demands for capacity development to ensure there is an environment free from fear and that the justice system is brought to bear.
Sir Dennis stressed the need for the allocation of resources to channel funding to social justices programmes for all people to develop their full range of human potential.
“Instead of demonising criminals, we should try to understand them and the reasons they have opted to behave the way they do. We all have a stake in creating a more just and equitable society grounded in the rule of law, as injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” he said.
Like many other CARICOM member states, St. Kitts and Nevis has its fair share of human rights issues with which to contend regarding lengthy pretrial detention and overcrowded penitentiaries.
With regards to pretrial detention, two cases that speak volume to this human rights issue are the Gregory Zakers’ murder trial and the Tony Fetherston’s murder trial.
Five men from St. Paul’s Village, Nelson ‘Mad One’ Challenger, Glenroy Smithen, Shenroy ‘Shenny’ Francis, Moses Gardener and Jomi ‘Biggie’ Rawlins, were charged with the murder of Zakers, whose lifeless body was discovered on a cliff in Black Rocks on April 12, 2008.
They were arrested and charged some three weeks later and were remanded at Her Majesty’s Prison (HMP) until their trial began at the Basseterre High Court on March 11, 2014.
And in the case of Joseph ‘Galvanise’ Hazel who was charged with the January 2000 murder of Suffolk millionaire Tony Fetherston, he was arrested and charged in 2001 but tried in 2004.
