“Moreover, the jailhouse grapevine will advise an accused not to plead guilty ever and will persuade him to apply for bail on the basis that he is not likely to be tried within a reasonable time. It will encourage him to use every device he can think up to frustrate the ends of justice, including demanding a new lawyer, feigning illness and what not, to delay the trial, and to buy years of time on bail, hoping that witnesses will forget their evidence, or die…” (Fmr. Justice Anita Allen).

There in lies our dilemma, it takes so so long for the wheels of justice to ‘roll’ in The Bahamas that criminals can plead not guilty, apply for bail and just ‘wait it out’ no matter the evidence against them! If you can’t put them on trial in a reasonable time, in many cases, for decades, then it really doesn’t matter what the punishment is, ‘Life with or without Parole’ or the ‘Death Penalty’. We keep talking about the punishment and we can’t even get to the ‘trial’🙄 What’s the matter with us?!🤨

Essentially if the current status continues, we’re doomed😳…🙄

Nonsense.

It boggles my mind how folks who claimed to be ‘Christian’, pretty much a New Testament religion, still hold fast to the “an eye for an eye” Old Testament philosophy. The premise of Christianity is ‘forgiveness’ and healing through forgiveness. If religion is not going to help us come together and solve our problems then we need to discard its rhetoric. We should rely on policies that have shown benefit both here and in other countries (evidence not speculation) which I am certain our local experts are cognizant of because they have been studying these problems for decades.

We need to focus our attention on helping our young people, especially our young men, BEFORE they get into trouble or when they have shown a risk of being delinquent. We once had proposals for National Service, that could be explored again, or the conversion of one of our secondary schools into a military academy with input from our National Security agencies Our meager resources, both manpower and financial (including emotional energy) is best ‘spent’ on prevention rather than the endless appeals process of intentionally having someone killed. Given the prolonged timeframe in this judicial system makes you wonder how reliable any evidence is, especially eyewitness testimony and thus the risk of false conviction is potentially increased…people can be exonerated years later, but not once put to death.

I am in favor of preventive efforts and so I will give the present government a chance with their Gang Related efforts, and the Opposition should too…this like many other of our national challenges require bipartisanship. Please PLP and FNM, put party politics to the side and come together to tackle the nation’s problems!

Amen.

Awesome group doing a worthwhile job❣️👍🏽

I am happy that the DPM has decided to publicize this issue. Our two service providers have not advanced beyond the mere appearance of competition. They pay lip-service to any cutting edge technology and have not lived up to their goals. I’m not sure what the right approach is, however we must do are best to find out and fix it. Otherwise we’re doomed to remain “developing”, like some organism UNable to advance beyond its infancy.

Wow Eye Surgery, for cataract no less. A procedure successfully done in the Bahamas for over fifty years!

Sounds like a failure of the public healthcare system. Wonder what Dr. Perry Gomez would have said?😳🤔

This humanitarian situation is indicative as to why we need to finally address our immigration policy, especially regarding “birth right citizenship’. We have certainly benefited from immigration and if we want to continue to reap those benefits then we should craft sensible and pragmatic policies.

Instead we continue to dodge the problems and they fester “since the 70’s” as one commenter opined.

Mrs. Clinton once opined “abortion should be safe, legal and rare…”. I can think of no other statement on the matter that so succinctly addresses this controversy.

Abortions have been freely available in the Bahamas for decades.

The “Church” should ‘sit small’ or pay taxes.

Politicians should grow ‘a spine’ or cajones, whichever allows them to do the right thing without fear or favor.

Thank you. You’ve shined the spotlight where it needs to be!

Intelligence and sensitivity on display👍🏽

This cheeky “editorial” is a bit disappointing coming from the likes of the esteem Tribune. Mr. Mitchell is not a candidate. Mr. Gibson would like to be.

While it is often said “the Bahamian electorate has a short memory” I’d be tempted to infer that anyone not aware of the wannabe candidate’s troubles as a CM must suffer from significant Alzheimer’s?! Not sure why anyone in WE/Bim would want him given that history, but ‘to each his own’?

Mr. Mitchell is said to “know where all the bones are buried” and I suspect we should trust him on this one, given his desire to preserve some semblance of decency in Bahamian foreign relations and ultimately our shared History…