New Legislation Coming Minimum 15-years For An Illegal Gun, Finally The Will Of The People Being Heard..

Those of you who both­er to care to read my work or lis­ten to me com­plain about Jamaica’s lax laws know just how long I have per­son­al­ly been beg­ging for tougher sen­tences for crim­i­nals caught with ille­gal guns. I can­not tell how many arti­cles I have writ­ten beg­ging the author­i­ties to change the mean­ing­less laws that make it worth­while for peo­ple to com­mit vio­lent crimes.
In almost every arti­cle I write I have con­tin­ued my cru­sade for what is known as truth in sen­tenc­ing and manda­to­ry min­i­mums for cer­tain vio­lent crimes.
I will get to the rea­sons but first (a) truth in sen­tenc­ing means just what the sen­tenc­ing judge hand­ed down, a ten (10) year sen­tence should not be whit­tled down to six years, (b) manda­to­ry min­i­mum means for cer­tain cat­e­gories of crimes judges [must] hand down a cer­tain sen­tence, unless there are mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances that are met in the statute that would allow an offend­er to receive a less­er sentence.
For exam­ple, two men fight­ing one push­es the oth­er who fell, hit his head, and dies, there was no prov­able intent to com­mit mur­der but the per­son is no less dead.
I am extreme­ly pleased that the leg­is­la­ture has seem­ing­ly awak­ened from its dan­ger­ous slum­ber and is doing its job. There is a new firearms act on the table, and the new manda­to­ry min­i­mum is fif­teen years for any­one caught with an ille­gal firearm.
Bravo, clap, clap, clap, when politi­cians meet the moment, we should com­mend them, and so I am com­mend­ing them for final­ly real­iz­ing that they must take action.
This bill is not yet law, how­ev­er, I am hop­ing that every­one will vote to pass this leg­is­la­tion; in the mean­time, I will be keep­ing my eyes open to see which politi­cian votes against it.

It is not exact­ly advis­able for mem­bers of one branch of gov­ern­ment to speak on the actions of anoth­er branch. As I said in a pre­vi­ous arti­cle about the judi­cia­ry and Sykes in par­tic­u­lar, the court seems to have got­ten more argu­men­ta­tive, opin­ion­at­ed and arro­gant under Sykes’ leadership.
Bryan Sykes knows that the new leg­is­la­tion is com­ing, so he is try­ing to get out ahead of the leg­is­la­ture by pre­tend­ing to hear the cries of the peo­ple about doing some­thing about the sen­tenc­ing that is being hand­ed down.
When you are giv­en a free hand you should be judi­cious with it or it will be tak­en from you.
He could not help him­self; how­ev­er, he had to speak on the work of anoth­er branch of gov­ern­ment as he hand­ed down sen­tenc­ing to a career criminal.
Judge Sykes sen­tenced 48-year-old Mark Shepherd to 15 a year sen­tences on the first count, which was even­tu­al­ly reduced to 10 years based on mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stance; sev­en years on count two; and the manda­to­ry 15 years on count three. The sen­tences are to run con­cur­rent­ly, so Shepherd, who has five pre­vi­ous con­vic­tions dat­ing from 1996 — will serve the longest of the three sen­tences, 15 years over­all.
Five pre­vi­ous felony con­vic­tions and the sen­tences hand­ed down did noth­ing to deter him. Here is a bit of news for those opposed to long sen­tences, from as far back as our laws were writ­ten when crime was extreme­ly low there were pro­vi­sions for a judge to put away a repeat offend­er as an ;incor­ri­gi­ble rogue.’ Had the court done it’s job he would not have brought harm to any­one else.
Societies have rule, those who refuse to live by those rules have no place in civ­i­lized soci­eties if they are unable to refrain from harm­ing others.

“We are now at the point where it is said 80 per­cent of homi­cides are com­mit­ted with the use of a firearm. So, in a sense, one can under­stand why the leg­is­la­ture respond­ed in the way that they have because here you have a sit­u­a­tion in which a firearm is being used to com­mit very seri­ous crimes — and the range of sen­tenc­ing does­n’t seem to have reflect­ed that gen­er­al fact. So, the par­lia­men­tar­i­ans are say­ing of judges, ‘We take a dim view of what you have been doing, so we are now going to con­trol your dis­cre­tion and set the min­i­mum posi­tion.’ And, if I must be can­did, I can’t say that I dis­agree.”(Bryan Sykes)
Ha haha­ha, it mat­ters not whether or not you dis­agree; the peo­ple’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives are speak­ing for the peo­ple, final­ly. This revolv­ing door for vio­lent crim­i­nals must end; as far as this hum­ble writer is con­cerned, I will con­tin­ue to fight with every drop of ener­gy I have until the leg­is­la­tors wake up and stop the wan­ton blood­shed in our country.
Violent crimes war­rant tough penal­ties, and if you are caught with an ille­gal weapon, you will spend a very long time in jail. Save me the damn sad stories.

“Quite a ratio­nal and rea­son­able response to the grow­ing prob­lem for a coun­try that does not man­u­fac­ture firearms. This is quite a rea­son­able position.”
“The leg­is­la­ture has tak­en the view that they are very dis­sat­is­fied with how the judi­cia­ry has been deal­ing with firearm offens­es. I have to assume that leg­is­la­tors are ratio­nal per­sons (note the unnec­es­sary dig at anoth­er branch of gov­ern­ment as it attempts to do what the peo­ple are ask­ing for)? Had they been sat­is­fied, they would not have embarked on the process of amend­ing var­i­ous bits of leg­is­la­tion since 2010 to insert min­i­mum manda­to­ry sen­tences.”(Sykes)
“I am not going to get into whether the leg­is­la­ture is wrong or right, but it seems as if there has been a lev­el of dis­qui­et with how the judi­cia­ry has been deal­ing with firearm offens­es.(Sykes)
Yes, that is why con­cerned Jamaicans like myself demand­ed that it be removed from the hands of you unelect­ed bureau­crats who con­tin­ue to show a wan­ton dis­re­gard for the killings or worse, are cor­rupt­ed based on the dis­parate sen­tences we have seen in the sen­tenc­ing of vio­lent killers.

So par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, as they are enti­tled to do, have tak­en a dif­fer­ent view of the mat­ter and decid­ed to reduce the dis­cre­tion that the tri­al judge has in some instances. Whether they are right or wrong is nei­ther here nor there at this point — it is just what is.”(Sykes)
Absolutely cor­rect, all of you have abused that dis­cre­tion the peo­ple gave you, and now they are tak­ing it back!!!
Remember how the police had very lit­tle over­sight and so they con­tin­ued to com­mit all kinds of ille­gal acts and end­ed up with INDECOM as a result?
Consider then just how the Jamaican judi­cia­ry has abused the dis­cre­tion giv­en it to be just, mer­ci­ful, yet firm with the peo­ple who come before the court.
The courts’ have betrayed the trust of their boss­es,( the Jamaican peo­ple). The peo­ple are now say­ing we are tired of your abuse, no more. It is for those rea­sons the peo­ple’s rep­re­sen­ta­tives have been forced to move on the peo­ple’s behalf or end up them­selves removed by the boss­es, the Jamaican people.
The peo­ple left it up to judges to deter­mine how much time a con­vict would spend behind bars as there was no min­i­mum sen­tence.; judges have been hor­ri­ble stew­ards of that trust.
I applaud National Security Minister Horace Chang for tabling the leg­is­la­tion, he cer­tain­ly has start­ed to listen.

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Mike Beckles is a for­mer Police Detective, busi­ness­man, a free­lance writer, black achiev­er hon­oree, and cre­ator of the blog mike​beck​les​.com.
 Feedback wel­come @ excellence@​hvc.​rr.​com