In a Freedom of Information request by Cayman lawyer Peter Polack it has revealed 372 persons are walking Cayman Islands streets out on court bail.

At first sight this seems a large number of persons – it actually is if you take the size of our population.

However, with crime increasing, the large amount of time it takes for prisoners to hear their case due to the overwhelmed court system, I suppose it is understandable.

I can hear the cries of complaints that bail is being granted “too easily”. Putting criminals back out on the streets.

North Side MLA, Ezzard Miller, with some justification has bemoaned the bail system explaining how crime persists in his district with certain criminals let out on bail and it only stops when the criminal is locked away

Our system, though, in a civilized world, argues that an accused is not guilty until convicted. All accused are generally entitled to bail pending trial unless there are strong circumstances that mitigate against bail.

I don’t have the figures but it does seem from reading the daily case sheets our courts actually deny bail more often than it is granted. Certainly the crown seem to oppose bail in far more cases than they agree.

If you look at the charges that are first brought against an accused and then compare the number when he/she actually gets to court it is often a lot less.

Is this a case of the police overcharging, charge someone with as many offences they can find in the hope some will stick?

It put the onus on a judge to play it safe regardless sometimes of the circumstances or what has in fact been disclosed to the judge.

I have also noticed numbers of cases where the time taken into consideration an accused spends in jail almost matched the sentence when he/she finally gets convicted.

There must soon come a time when in fact his/her time will exceed the sentence. What happens then? Does the accused get a credit if or when he commits a crime again?

I have also seen a number of questionable charges made against the accused and I wonder sometimes if this is part of a theory by the Crown the court will sort it out later.

All this then makes it harder to grant bail than easier.