Member of Parliament for St Andrew Western, Anthony Hylton, has suggested that the fear of retaliation against their families has prevented Jamaicans from making use of the provisions of the plea bargaining legislation that was first passed into law in November 2005.

The legislation was last upgraded in 2017 but has always been under-utilised.

“There’s no question about the fact that the plea bargain arrangement …to my mind, I share the view that it has been under-utilised,” said Hylton last Wednesday as the House of Representatives debated and passed the new Firearms (Prohibition, Restriction and Regulation) Act 2022.

The veteran MP said “it may have more to do with just working through the kinks and to get it to be part of our culture,” while noting that it was something that was “imported”.

Plea bargaining is widely used in the United States as a means to get to the main perpetrators of serious crimes. Cooperating witnesses often benefit from reduced sentences.

Hylton acknowledged that if it works in Jamaica, it will be a useful tool in the fight against crime.

Yet, he said “one of our biggest issues is to find the people (violence producers) in the first place, to catch them. You can’t talk about sentencing until you’ve caught the (perpetrators)”.

Hylton lamented that Jamaica’s cleared-up rate for criminal activity of 53 per cent was a big part of the problem.

“And after you catch the few within the 53 per cent, the whole question of plea bargaining, one of the reasons why it has not worked as it was designed to work…as I’m understanding it, is that once the person is arrested, the violence against the family and community from which (the perpetrator) comes, starts,” said Hylton.

“And so there’s not an incentive to continue along those paths (plea bargaining),” he added.

Jamaica has had a long history of witnesses being intimidated and killed, including on their way to and from court to give evidence. More recently, entire families have been targeted. This has made potential witnesses unwilling to cooperate with the police, with the added problem being a lack of trust in the police.

Hylton argued that in any event, a potential plea bargainer has to consider that if he does take a plea, “it’s equivalent, it’s like the death sentence being imposed (on him) anyway or the life sentence (now contained in the new Firearms Act for certain gun offences”.

He reiterated that “This is how it (retaliation for those who cooperate and plea) works; it starts with the family being targeted”.

Addressing National Security Minister Dr Horace Chang who piloted the Firearms Bill, Hylton said: “I’m just saying to you that there are things countervailing and militating against an effective use of the plea bargaining legislation and that cannot be ignored. It needs to be examined more closely and understood but I can tell you that you hear about it being said in the community that once you start to cooperate then there are other measures that are utilised (by criminals)”.

As such, while the Opposition People’s National Party gave its support to the Bill, its members, including Opposition Leader Mark Golding, voiced their concern against a mandatory sentence of 15 years for gun crimes and up to a life sentence in some circumstances.

Said Hylton: “There are still issues in the system to be worked out before getting to the sentencing stage to apply the mandatory life (sentence) and what is being created here. My concern is that we’ve been this route before (mandatory sentencing)”.