Commentary

Disturbing mob justice

A RESIDENT OF May Pen, Clarendon, became the third victim of vigilante justice within five days. The man was among a group of men who allegedly shot and killed a resident. He was beaten and then burnt to death by angry residents of Seven Roads in that parish.

This is undoubtedly a distrubing trend. When supposedly 'law abiding' citizens set upon and beat, chop or burn a defenceless person to death, in the eyes of the law, they have crossed over to the threshold of lawlessness and, ironically, are just as culpable as the 'criminal' that they just meted out their special brand of 'justice' to.

A police officer at the May Pen Police Station told THE STAR that this kind of killing usually occur in innercities, but this was not the case some time last year when a man who allegedly attempted to steal a car on the campus of the University of Technology (UTECH) was chased into a pit filled with water and stoned until he drowned in faecal matter. Those persons were, for the most part, students of UTech, granted, a number of them might be from the innercities, but certainly not all of them were.

This disturbing phenomenon must be looked at from a societal perspective and the microscope should be turned particularly on our justice systems, its effectiveness, or lack thereof.

Could it be that the public is losing faith in the ability of our police force to properly investigate and prosecute criminals which has resulted in the public taking matters in their own hands?

Minister of National Security Peter Phillips recently implored police investigators to form stronger alliances with state prosecutors to ensure that more criminals are convicted, which lends support to this view. The minister clearly stated that there were far too many cases where the police failed to achieve convictions. Is this, then, a case of physician, heal thyself?