LOWE RIVER, Trelawny — Justice Minister Delroy Chuck has signalled his intention to introduce legislation that would see the death penalty imposed on gangsters convicted for multiple killings.

“As a country, we have to fight back and the Government is prepared and determined to fight back. That is why, apart from gang legislation, I will soon take to Parliament [a proposal for] those gangsters who are killing two or more people, the death sentence may well be there for them. We haven’t imposed it yet, but it may well be there. Let it go back up to the Privy Council and they get life sentence, fine! But we have to start sending the signal that some of these gangsters must be out of the community forever. Because if we don’t remove them from the community, they will take over,” the minister said on Wednesday at the Trelawny Justice of the Peace Association’s commissioning ceremony. The event was held at Lowe River United Church in Lorrimers.

Currently, people convicted for murder, in specified circumstances, can be given a death sentence with the law prescribing that the method of execution is hanging. The last person executed in Jamaica was Nathan Foster, who was convicted of murder and hanged in 1988.

The Jamaican Parliament placed a moratorium on the death penalty until 2009, when it was lifted. Since 2009, capital punishment is legal and executions in Jamaica could resume; however, there have been no executions since.

On Wednesday, Chuck acknowledged that even before having to cross the hurdle of getting the death penalty, there are challenges in securing convictions against gangsters.

“What is more important, and this is the challenge, is how you get the evidence to put them away. Man ’fraid!” he said.

His comments came on the heels of two shooting incidents that left six men dead in a section of Waltham Park Road, St Andrew, on Monday evening. Following the massacre, purportedly committed by gangsters, Prime Minister Andrew Holness promised the nation that legislative changes are coming.

“We consider them acts of terror and we are examining the law to see what other penalties and what other deterrents can be placed in law to prevent criminals and criminal-minded people in gangs from committing these kinds of acts. In the meantime, from an operational perspective, the police can mobilise resources to deal with the problem,” the prime minister said.

It was the latest in a string of violent incidents across the country.

In October, five people were killed and two injured when gunmen shot up a football game in East Kingston. A few weeks earlier, four men were killed when gunmen shot up a bar in Bethel Town, Westmoreland. Four others were injured in the incident. In August, a mass shooting in Cherry Tree Lane, Clarendon, left eight people dead, including a seven-year-old boy.

“Gangs are becoming well-organised. You saw it in El Salvador, where they were taking over until [President Nayib] Bukele took a most aggressive action — don’t get me wrong — and lock up 70,000 of them and the murder rate went down to almost nothing,” said Chuck.

“People said, ‘Mr Chuck, Prime Minister Andrew Holness, why you don’t do that here?’God forbid that we should ever have to do that, but when you think of what is happening next door in Haiti, where the gangs are taking over, have taken over, and here in Jamaica, many communities have been taken over by gangs. And quietly, in your peaceful community, before you know, it is one bad man who start to tell you what time to come home and what time to leave your house and where you must lock,” he argued.

He stressed the importance of acting before it is too late.

“If you don’t start fighting back from early, then before you know it, you can’t. And that is why the prime minister and the Government and the police force are determined that we’re going to dismantle the gangs. Because if we don’t dismantle the gangs, they can only get stronger, broader and start dictating to communities,” Chuck said.