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Public Safety & Justice |
Criminal Justice System
Crime, particularly serious violent crime, is destructive of the fibre of our society and ourway of life, and the elimination of crime from our communities has become extremely urgent.The Free National Movement recognises that crime, and the fear of crime, have placed considerable anxiety on the Bahamian people and have the potential to endanger sour economic welfare.
The FNM also recognises that crime is a complex social phenomenon, the consequence of decades of neglect and inaction in which the nation’s principal social institutions were permitted to deteriorate and disintegrate. This is especially true of the two principal social institutions, the family and the school.
Economic deterioration and unemployment contributed greatly to the disintegration of the family, and an understaffed and ill-equipped Government operated educational establishment failed badly in its mission of preparing the nation’s young for their role in society.The convergence of the previous neglect of the nation’s principal social institutions and the disastrous effects of the illicit drug trade, beginning in the late 1970s and continuing throughout the 1980s, and the resultant culture which emerged thereafter, represent the genesis of the violent crime presently confronting residents.
In recognition of this state of affairs, the Free National Movement, since assuming Office in 1992, set about to strengthen and enhance community institutions and the legal framework to address this most urgent imperative. In its first term the Free National Movement Administration carried out a country wide upgrade and refurbishment of all existing government operated schools; added 6,300 student places to the nation’s government operated school system; increased the number of teachers in the school system by over 450; increased tuition materials available in government operated schools; upgraded and expanded technical and vocational education at secondary school level and at The Bahamas Technical and Vocational Institute; and increased government funding for after school activities, including sports, music and junkanoo. And Grant-in-Aid to church operated schools was doubled.
The Free National Movement Government expanded community policing and built two new police stations, one at Nassau and Meeting Streets, and another at Wulff Road in the vicinity of Mackey Street, and commenced construction of an additional police station on the Prince Charles Highway, in the vicinity of Elizabeth Estates and Colony Village; increased police visibility in our communities and improved police response time to reports of crime by substantially expanding the police vehicle fleet and the condition and maintenance of that fleet.
The Free National Movement Government has improved prison conditions, expanding and upgrading rehabilitative programmes to address the perennial problem of repeat offenders; made provision for more courts, more prosecutors, more judges and more magistrates than ever before; and introduced highly skilled Court stenographers to the Supreme Court.
The Free National Movement established a Coroner’s Court, with proceedings open to the public, to hold inquests into the deaths of persons held in police custody, incarcerated at her Majesty’s Prison at Fox Hill, or under suspicious circumstances. This Court has eliminated the considerable backlog of Cororner’s Inquests pending prior to 1992.
The Free National Movement Government improved training and retraining programmes available at the Police College and increased the number of new police recruits by three hundred and ninety-six by 1996; made provision in the 1996-97 Budget for the recruitment of an additional 100 new police officers; and transferred to the Royal Bahamas Defence Force responsibility for protecting diplomatic missions and residences and for manning the Immigration Detention Centre at Carmichael Road, thereby reducing the number of non-policing activities delegated to police officers.
The Free National Movement Government also made provision for the introduction of Lay Magistrates who will soon be empanelled in the judicial system to deal with minor infractions, including disorderly behaviour, vagrancy, use of obscene language, threats of harm and the violation of environmental laws. An Amendment to the law providing for the five criminal divisions of the Supreme Court to meet throughout the year has resulted in additional trial days.
A one-way mirror has been introduced to help to reduce the reluctance of victims and witnesses of crime to identify suspects in identification parades.And, the Free National Movement Government has amended the law to require persons accused of murder, armed robbery and drug conspiracy to be denied bail, and has provided for legal representation for all indigent persons charged with serious crimes such as armed robbery, drug conspiracy and murder. Having appointed a full-time Law Reform and Law Revision Commissioner, the Free National Movement is satisfied that the administrative, social and legislative framework for the development of an Action Plan to effectively reduce and prevent crime in The Bahamas is now in place.
Accordingly, an FNM Government in its second term will:
Establish an Action Task Force on Crime for the specific purpose of creating a "Blueprint for Action" to become the basis of Government’s future national strategy for responding to the continued crime prollem. Enact legislation to provide specific community service requirements, alternative to incarceration, for first time non-violent offenders. This legislation will allow the Courts to make specific Community Service Orders against such persons, without requiring their incarceration in the general prison population. Establish a Public Defenders Office and engage lawyers on a full-time basis to represent and defend persons charged with serious offences before the Supreme Court. The salaries and benefits of this Office will be identical to that of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. Revise and enact new, modern and updated Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code and a new Juries Act. Construct a new maximum security prison to reduce overcrowding at the existing prison at Fox Hill and to facilitate the separation of serious, violent criminals from other convicts serving sentences of imprisonment, and provide for the relocation of- persons on remand so as to house them separately from convicted persons serving sentences. Continue formulating and implementing educational and youth development programmes targeted to "at-risk" youth to help to guide them toward positive life choices. Construct a properly appointed Supreme Court complex to provide facilities and security for judges, court employees, jurors, victims and accused persons. Redesign and upgrade the Supreme Court building to house all Magistrates Courts, now situated at various locations in downtown Nassau.