By KHRISNA RUSSELL

Tribune Chief Reporter

krussell@tribunemedia.net

NATIONAL Security Minister Wayne Munroe says the concept that greater penalties will stop someone from committing a crime overlooks the fact that people need to have self-control and take personal responsibility for their actions.

Ahead of a Cabinet meeting yesterday, the minister was asked if he was of the view that stiffer penalties were needed as a deterrent to crime.

He made the comment during an interview about what transpired in the lead up to the murder of Heavenly Terveus on Saturday. The young mother was shot by her partner in front of her newborn son. Police said the man, Fenron Ferguson, then shot himself.

Terveus, Ferguson and their infant son were all found on the floor of her bedroom by other occupants of the home, police said. The baby was taken to hospital, but was later discharged.

Ferguson died in hospital on Monday evening.

“Well, the incident that just passed of domestic violence would be an offence of murder,” Mr Munroe told reporters.

“The ultimate penalty for murder is death. If you aren’t sentenced to death, you are generally awarded punishments in the range of 50 to 60 years in prison. I can’t think of a harsher penalty than that yet with that being the penalty the young man did what he did.

“We have to get to the point that people control their behaviour because they accept that it is not right to shoot someone in their head.”

Mr Munroe added: “It’s not right to rob people. It is not right to rape people.

“This concept that somehow a penalty greater than death would stop a man killing a woman overlooks the fact that we have to have personal control and we have to take personal responsibility. Until we buy into that we’re going to continue to think that the police catching somebody, the courts convicting and sentencing someone, is the answer.

“The answer is let us try to stop this nonsense before it starts. Let us concentrate on raising well-adjusted young people.”