Dear Editor,

Bishop Dr Alvin Bailey, president of Jamaica Evangelical Alliance, is right to support the legal profession’s call for fairness under Jamaica’s Firearms (Prohibition, Restriction and Regulation) Act, 2022. I support that call as an educator. I also support it because, as a child, I learnt how little choice a schoolboy can have when someone places a gun in his hands.

In the late 1960s, while attending St Jude’s Primary School, I was forced to carry an illegal firearm in my school bag from the school gate to the top of Bay Farm Road. I understood that refusing would have consequences. Afterwards, I told my parents. I believe the incident may have been one of the main reasons they left the neighbourhood and moved to Clarendon.

I was fortunate. I could tell my parents, and they could act to protect me. What happens to a child who cannot leave?

An illegal gun is a grave danger, and those who use firearms to terrorise or kill must face serious consequences. Yet a court must be able to distinguish the adult who orders a child to carry a gun from a child who carries it under threat, coercion, or other circumstances beyond the child’s control.

That is why the concerns raised by the Jamaican Bar Association and the Advocates’ Association of Jamaica deserve a serious response. The lawyers have said they seek discretion for judges in exceptional cases. They have also questioned how the Act applies to children. Giving a judge the power to examine the facts of an individual case does not prevent that judge from imposing a severe sentence when it is warranted.

For children living in communities controlled by gangs or area dons, coercion can reach beyond a single threat. Political divisions and gang loyalties can shape the streets they walk, the people they encounter, and the choices they believe are open to them. Jamaican researcher Herbert Gayle’s study of young boys in communities affected by political gang violence found that nurturing and supervision helped protect them from harmful influences. It also described how political tribalism could be taught to boys at a very young age.

Education should be another source of protection. Yet UNICEF reports that Jamaican children complete an average of 11.7 years of schooling while gaining the equivalent of only 7.2 years of learning. It estimates that approximately 50,000 secondary school-age adolescents are out of school, three in five of them are boys. These figures do not explain every firearm offence, but they do tell us that too many young people are growing up without the educational foundation and opportunities they need.
Jamaica’s 2023 Violence Against Children and Youth Survey adds another warning. It documents children’s exposure to violence in their homes, schools, and communities, as well as the effects on their well-being and school attendance. A court considering a young person’s sentence should be able to hear evidence about fear, coercion, maturity, and the role that person actually played.

Family circumstances matter too. A child may lack a present father or another dependable adult. A parent may be struggling to provide protection amid poverty and violence. These are reasons to strengthen families and child-protection services, not to condemn parents who are already under strain. Schools, communities, and political leaders must answer for their responsibilities as well.

The Government has a duty to confront gun violence, and every Jamaican deserves safety. Prime Minister Andrew Holness has credited the Firearms Act as one part of a wider response to crime. But protecting the public does not require Parliament to deny judges the ability to recognise an exceptional case.

A law is draconian when its rigidity can make a threatened child and the adult who exploited that child subject to the same mandatory minimum without adequate room for the court to distinguish their circumstances. Parliament should provide a carefully defined exception, requiring judges to give written reasons when departing from the minimum. Serious sentences must remain available for those who recruit children, control firearms, and commit violence.

I still remember the weight of that gun in my school bag. Jamaica must consider the child carrying it, the adult who put it there, and the institutions that should have protected the child long before a case reached court.

Dr Clovis B Nelson
Educator, educational leader, academic researcher and publisher
clovisnel737@gmailcom