A number of years ago I was at a traffic court in St Catherine. A young woman had been charged with driving without insurance. She pleaded guilty and was told, to my astonishment, that there was a 14-day mandatory sentence for the offence. Well, off to jail she went.

I wasn’t comfortable with that. It didn’t sit right with me that a person — by all accounts a good person who made a mistake — should go to prison, especially when no one was hurt as a result of the mistake.

This is the world of mandatory sentencing. Judges blessed with wisdom garnered over decades of experience are reduced to reading a sentence to an accused, with no power to apply discretion.

I have been involved in tackling tourist harassment in zones where a law exists that prohibits locals from offering services to tourists. This peculiar legal tool came about because of the degree of distress that people selling various items or services caused to guests in our country. The behaviour was intimidating; it was downright bullying. Many tourists who experienced it never returned. If they did come, they sought shelter in all-inclusive resorts.

I totally understood the need for this law, despite not appreciating the mandatory sentencing aspect of it, which was 14 days. It was needed for the greater good, as few people were destroying an industry that many relied on.

Something about the application of the law, however, didn’t seem right. It still meant that people who were not criminals were going to jail. I have written about and praised the new gun Bill that gives appropriate sentences to people held with guns or who commit crimes with them. This change in law is one of the major reasons we can now proudly say our crime rate is below the Pan-American average, but why mandatory sentencing instead of sentencing guidelines?

I am pleased to see that the toy gun and the ammunition breaches that could cause regular people who are not criminals to go to jail are being addressed. Furthermore, I still applaud the creators of this Bill.

So this article is about normal people going to jail, versus criminals who belong there. I have a lot of compassion for non-criminals, irrespective of their social or income bracket. I have absolutely no compassion for criminals who cause harm to others. This stand has angered quite a few people, who call me unkind names or label me using particularly negative adjectives. I have two questions for people like that. First, what about my hating killers is so reprehensible to you? Second, why don’t you call me these names to my face instead of hiding behind keyboards and screens?

I am going to highlight a case of a non-criminal going to jail that will divide us further on the issue. There is an informal settlement growing behind the racetrack in St Catherine in the vicinity of Waterford. Some years ago a baby left by his mother on a bed fell into a bucket of water, head first, and drowned.

The mother had left the baby alone for a few minutes to talk with someone. I was one of the police officers who responded to the accident. It was difficult to see life lost in this manner. I was sad, horrified, angry, and frustrated all in the same minute.

The mother was arrested and placed in custody. Despite my anger at her, I didn’t think prison was the appropriate place for her. Why? Because she is not a criminal. Well, no one agreed with me, and I guess you don’t either. I agree that she should face the courts for criminal negligence, but being remanded for years for a mistake is different from being remanded for intentionally hurting someone.

What if it were my daughter who made that mistake? What if it were yours? I have never given much thought as to where to place buckets of water when a baby is on a bed because I have running water and I don’t live in a single board room. It is easy to judge a calamity in hindsight but it is a little more difficult when part of the reason is a society that exists under totally different circumstances from the norm, with no real plan to change it!

So, jail as a solution for the actions of non-criminals is always a tough subject to debate. This is largely because it’s so effective a solution and nothing else seems to curb behaviour.

I see the introduction of a law that results in a two-week remand for possession of a knife as necessary. Why? Because as our gun murders decline to a rate expected in a civilised society, the knife murders are as much as a third in some police divisions that are famous for gun crimes.

An examination of knife murders reflects that they are unplanned and are knee-jerk reactions to disputes. The prevalence of males carrying knives is a major cause of the epidemic. The lack of any real sanctions for doing same is the reason it will continue. So unfortunately, and likely caused by my psychosis from seeing the recent knife murder of a woman in a dispute over ice, I am recommending that we introduce remand for knife possession. This in an effort to change the culture of everyone walking with a “three-star ratchet”.

I think the true solution to non-criminals going into custody for criminal offences, such as certain traffic breaches, negligence, or knife-possession, is a restructuring of the prison system. The restructuring should involve reducing the overcrowding and a realistic provision of a space for light offenders that is not a replication of a cage for an animal.

This is necessary because, due to the dynamics of the system, non-criminals will always end up in jail. If we are not careful, we could become victims too.

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