So here we are again caught in the middle of a redundant political debate over hanging.

Every couple of years our politicians, I feel, in an effort to try and convince the public that they care about the spate of violent crimes that has the nation paralysed with fear, start blowing smoke about hanging criminals.

As far as I know it never works, and it never will. The first thing is, who are they going to hang, the criminals already on death row? And even if they do manage to work through whatever legal obstacles that have prevented anyone from being hanged since 1988, how exactly does this deter the criminals on the street and in our neighbourhoods? How do you hang what you can't catch?

Idiotic responses

Last Sunday both major newspapers polled politicians from both sides of the aisle about their views on hanging, and what they both got was a bunch of mainly idiotic responses that confirm what I already knew about these people. Ninety per cent of them are weak leaders and have no place being in positions of power.

Of all the ones polled James Robertson, I think, provided the best answer to the issue, even if it is incomplete in its scope. He argues that hanging is on our law books but he would only support it if "we have the requisite scientific tools and our police force is up to 2008 standards". I found most of the other responses quite humorous.

The PNP's Noel Arscott offered this gem. "To be honest, I am researching the matter and doing a series of consultations with my constituents."

And what exactly is he researching? The meaning of hanging? Whether his constituents want hanging? It's not rocket science.

But at least he responded. Shahine Robinson didn't even have the courage to offer an opinion. What's not to comment about? It's either you support hanging or you don't.

Consult with their constituents

Like Arscott, many of the politicians said they had to consult with their constituents before they made a decision. Well, if that is what they are waiting for, let me help them out a bit. Most Jamaicans support the death penalty. The thing is, they don't trust the police or the legal system. And can you blame them, when you see enough well-to-dos walk free from crimes they have been accused of?

Police fabricate evidence

Too many poor people pay the price for crimes they may not have committed; cases are tied up in court for eons; witnesses are murdered while trying to do the right thing; and police fabricate evidence to send the innocent to jail. What else can you do but lose trust in the system?

But all of this means nothing really because hanging should not even be an issue right now.

To me, debating whether to hang or not is kind of like walking into an ice cream store and telling the counter clerk you want sprinkles, without saying what type of ice cream or cone you want. In other words, why are we focusing on the end result when we don't even have a proper handle on how we are going to get there?

Two people get shot and killed and everybody's bawling, "Hang them! Hang them!" Hang who?

Modernise the police force

If we are really serious about dealing with crime, the last thing we need to be doing is banging our heads against the wall over hanging when we really need to clean up and modernise the police force, get more cops properly trained to conduct forensic investigations, unclog the court system, throw out cases of minor offences, if necessary, and investigate and arrest politicians who keep harbouring and supporting criminals. We also need to break down the damned garrisons, no matter what it may mean to someone's political future. The ambitions of a few cannot be more important than the fate of the masses.

When we get all that done and there is trust in the system, maybe then we could go back and decide if we should hang those convicted of murdering our men, women and children.

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