By Peter Polack

Peter Polack

Caribbean countries have disparate policies on the rehabilitation of offenders,if they can complete their sentences, given recent events. 

The Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago has affirmed the recent killing of eleven alleged drug traffickers in the region by the Trump administration giving rise to a new concept. The White House is now prescribing the penalties for some criminal offences and the manner of implementation as most stand mute. Regional legislation by decree from Washington and judgment by the new method of the JJEI or judge,jury and executioner immediately.

Presumably the American government will be applying this new policy to all drug traffickers arrested, charged or convicted in the USA as narco terrorists.

Despite this the Cayman Islands has pursued it’s own path of rehabilitation enlightenment by the recent appointment of two former drug traffickers to a major government board. This comes on the cusp of a former drug dealer and Minister of Tourism being appointed Deputy Premier of the country.

They should be careful of the Trump mandate being extended to past offences or a pen stroke away from eliminating the financial industry.

The political hierarchy has pursued a policy of ignoring the U.K. colonial restrictions imposed by the local rehabilitation of offenders law for expungement of records in three significant ways.

The U.K. restrictions for clearing criminal convictions are greatly reduced when compared to the requirement for Cayman citizens.The local political establishment has clearly agreed to this higher rehabilitation and expungement bar for their mostly young people in many non violent or other offences.

The Cayman restrictions on some offences not being capable of record expungement include the usual suspects of murder and manslaughter but also many serious offences such as rape or violence provided that these sentences are under five years. A curious but obviously beneficial anomaly to some.

Finally, Cayman expungement of criminal records is dependent on a final bar of that old entreaty, happily ignored by the media, that the record expungement would not bring the administration of justice into disrepute. Not like ignored FOI requests for basic information, convictions without evidence or excessive prosecutions.

Again, these positions are not dissimilar to a democratically elected government passing legislation to legalize marijuana or promise same after a country wide yes referendum. This would be the position in Bermuda and Cayman now overruled by the British government.

One rule for them and all that.

Perhaps George Orwell said it best in Animal Farm.

All animals are equal,but some animals are more equal than others.

Peter Polack is a former criminal lawyer in the Cayman Islands. His books are The Last Hot Battle of the Cold War: South Africa vs. Cuba in the Angolan Civil War (2013); Jamaica, The Land of Film (2017); and Guerrilla Warfare: Kings of Revolution (2019). He was a contributor to the Encyclopedia of Warfare (2013). His latest book is a compendium of Russian espionage activities 1940-88.