To kill or not to kill? Death penalty is still in the books
The death penalty is still in Belize’s constitution even though the last person to have been executed was over twenty-five years ago when Kent Bowers was hung for the murder of Robert Codd. There are eight persons on death row but only one person has served over fifty years in prison and cannot be executed according to a ruling made in the Prett verses Morgan case. The issue of the death penalty came up last Friday at the meeting of the Human Rights Committee which is reviewing implementation of various treaties. The committee also queried why Belize has not changed its provisions on death penalty since it says we are obligated to bring domestic legislation into line with the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. Last Friday, the committee was less than candid about Belize’s absence in the proceedings going as far as to say that information provided was useless. It also chastised Belize on implementation of the Supreme Court rulings, sexual and gender discrimination. Generally, Belize got a horrible report card on a number of issues. In the instance of police brutality, it found there are many complaints but no information on whether the victim received justice.
“Paragraph fifty in replies to the list of issues, tells us that in 2012 there were two hundred and thirty-nine reports concerning problems with police which involves lack of professionalism and even problems with death in custody. In this paragraph not once is the word torture used. Fourteen forms of harmful conduct are identified: seven cases of wounding, one case of rape, another case of serious bodily injury and another case of sudden death in custody. Paragraph fifty-four says that while all cases were investigated the action taken depended in the action of the complainant. What does this mean? It means if there is no complain, there is no investigation into cases of torture.”
According to the committee there is very little information of trials of police brutality which raises concern as to whether there is justice for victims of police brutality.
Definitely, a life for a life! Murderers should all hang, no mercy, no exceptions. Our Jewel has descended into a primitive state because known murderers freely strut our streets, and our criminal justice system — police, DPP, and courts together — have become almost completely unable to protect.
100 well-placed hangings will restore security and peace to the nation, and I say let’s get on with it, without regard to the social sensibilities of other nations which are fortunate not to be as dangerous as Belize. When murder is rare, then we can become squeamish about hanging killers. Until then, I’ll be happy to buy the rope.
Truth is, I’d be happy to go some steps farther, including vigilante punishment of notorious gangsters and posting “wanted dead or alive” bounties for them.
If the UN wants to criticize our law, which is not used anyway, let them come live here for a year or more. Those who survive will change their views.
I say we keep the death penalty and use it on the criminals, do not let any foreign agency come into our country and dictate how we run our country. America still has death penalty on their books and use it quite frequently, Texas and Arizona for example has executed many criminals over the years. Until America and the organizations from within stop their executions then maybe we would consider but for now HANG THEM CRIMINALS HIGH.
sake a human rights we have crooked humans… as other countries human rights should be abolished, before that organization came into this heaven we had respectful people and less murderers… the leaders of human rights are all criminals that is why they defend them.
Please keep it on the Belizean constitution list, we need it really bad to be used since the crime has not even stop it’s rate according to the stats, meaning crime means, killings, rape which has our Jewel more plague than other petty crimes like caught with a stick of weed.
Please start using the hanging penalty with the recent guy that raped his step daughter with the consent of his common law wife.
Since for all intents and purposes we are going to be having a referendum on Oct 6th anyway, why not have GOB include another question in that vote – “Yes or No: Should the death penalty be kept in the Laws of Belize despite the wishes of the international community, and more importantly if yes, do you agree it should be carried out more?”
I bet you’d have overwhelming support from the Belizean public!! None of our politicians could ever be worried that they don’t at least have the mandate of the people on this issue.
I believe that most Belizeans, whether intuitively, or thru a reasoned and well thought out process, certainly understand that the death penalty is not a cure all for the escalating major crime rate in Belize, but at the same time they also understand that it is certainly of some assistance to mitigating our murderous society! And so, they support the use of the Death Penalty in a society such as ours that cannot get even the smallest semblance of control of the murder problem.
Lets put the question of the death penalty to the people. by doing it on Oct 6th, you’ll be able to save money on not having to do it at another time
But then again, to do this would take a significant amount of testicular fortitude in our current administrators. Sadly, it is almost a dead certainty that there exists no such thing amongst any of those of the current party in power!
I say, hang them, too much gang violence in Belize now. Start hanging the leaders and others will then fear the law, because the law has been so lienient with them , they are taking belize down, tourism is a main form of income for a large portion of belizeans and with all the bad reports being posted around the world about belize, it will certainly hurt belize.
I as a Belizean is scared when I go home to visit, walking in the city for me is scary, the government need to look into hanging. Bring it back, if these gang bangers want to run around killing inocent people then they should be prepared for hanging. Hand a few and the others will be scared and that way belize will have more control over these wanna be thugs. I say hand their @$$#$.
Murder will always be committed, and by no means should we think that if the death penalty is enacted there will never be another murder. It will serve as a deterant at least to some of the would be killers. So I say enact it, keep it on the books and let us move forward and get this thing done.
Human rights. ..they care more about the perpetrator than the victim…its one of the reason why crime has skyrocketed in neighboring countries. .
Belize, it time to get some new rope and heng some ……!!!! # human rights…
Those orginizations started in USA so they need to implement before they try to have other countries do the same. We are a small country so leave us alone we do not need no one to tell us how to run our country. from the start they came in and came up with the rights of a child not to be wip in school and now look what happend 15 years late much crime with young people and they even want to beat their parents. Let go back to the old way and we will see that things change hang them beat the hell out of bad childrens as i was wip with fan belts and it did not cripple me or damage me i grew up straight where at 45 years I do not use drugs or been to prison. Lets get back Belize by any means necessary and we will all live in harmony.
I agree: Hang ’em. High!
But first, whom shall we hang? Remember we have a 2% conviction rate…..you have to convict before you can hang!
Hang all killers o but I forgot these gang killers are working for this pm and gov. So of course they are pushing their own agenda.
HANG dem yes.. i cud even buy d rope if GOB cant afford fu buy it. seriuos da cause of human rights Belize de like dis mess now.
Wow, in these comments we have 100% agreement among the writers — keep the death penalty and use it! That might be a first for this discussion board.
Someone said, “A conservative is a liberal who has been robbed.” With our incredibly high rate of violent crime, everyone has a friend or relative who has been murdered, robbed, or shot.
I agree with Think-About-It. Why go to such drastic measures for punishment when 98% of those charged walked free! We can have the toughest death penalty but if we can rarely convict criminals, what’s the point????????????