FNM MISTAKES ON MURDER CONVICTIONS REFLECT LARGER FAILURE TO FIGHT CRIME

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Thousands gather to greet PLP Leader Perry Christie - File Photo

Press Statement By

The Progressive Liberal Party

July 7th 2011

We call upon John Delaney to give the statistics for murder convictions and mistrials for all matters before the Supreme Court since August, 2010.

The result: record number of murders, increased crime across the board, every Bahamian family and community affected. The number of mistrials and improperly prepared cases appears to be increasing.

When Mr. Delaney gets these big facts wrong, is he lying or simply incompetent?  Bahamians can decide for themselves.  But one thing’s for sure — the facts do not support him. Why does all this matter?

And because Mr. Delaney’s sloppiness reflects a key truth about this government: they care more about politics than they do about fighting crime. Swift Justice was a PLP program that brought together the Attorney General’s office, the police, social services, and others together on a regular basis to ensure a swifter path to trial, and to ensure that witnesses and investigating detectives and others providing evidence would be present at trial.  Swift Justice was effective — but it was a PLP program, so the FNM has neglected to fully implement it, because they care more about who gets the credit than they do about justice in the Bahamas.

The failure to fully implement Swift Justice is part of a larger pattern — this FNM government has also gutted Urban Renewal and School Policing, two other PLP initiatives that were starting to make a real difference.

Not “completely accurate” — that is how Attorney General John Delaney, speaking for the FNM government, has characterized his own comments in the Senate about conviction rates for murder. (Nassau Guardian , July 6, 2011)

The Attorney General was forced to backtrack on statements made during his budget contribution after the Nassau Guardian revealed that his numbers did not add up. But it turns out that Mr. Delaney didn’t just get the numbers wrong — his entire story is wrong.  Mr. Delaney portrayed the convictions as a result of new initiatives under Vinette Graham Allen.  Mrs. Graham-Allen, the controversial non-Bahamian DPP, only began work in the summer of 2010 — while the convictions to which Attorney General Delaney referred were achieved between early 2000 and July 2010, a period during which the Directors of Public Prosecutions were Mr. Bernard Turner and Mrs. Cheryl Grant Bethell, both Bahamians.

FNM MISTAKES ON MURDER CONVICTIONS REFLECT LARGER FAILURE TO FIGHT CRIME.

4 COMMENTS

  1. For a FNM cabinet that claims to be so competent, they sure could not have worked any harder at messing up just about anything they have touched.
    The conflicting reports originating from the AG’s office, the Police Commissioner, while the Director of Immigration is totally confused as to when it’s OK to arrest-the Haitians, no wonder the man is so confused when he has strict directives from this FNM cabinet not to dare go to arrest late at night, or too early in the morning, least his immigration officers disturb the illegals beauty sleep.
    Instead of a minister standing in the House to explain why there is 100,000 Haitians scattered throughout our Bahamas, he stands to try and convince the Church Goers in their FNM party that although his government was not authorized by Bahamians to support Gay Rights at the UN, his government would never legalize “man on man buggery on the high seas??
    Like I keep on saying folks I just can’t be making this stuff up for your entertainment, cause it’s FNM every day incompetence reality.

  2. You cannot gut a police force of all of its talented middle managers and expect a good result.The police force and the judicial system are all in a mess because of political interference. Nothing will change until the force is given the capability and skill sets required to achieve its mandate.

  3. This is so ridiculous as the PM promised the country to unveil a strategy to combat crime but instead all he has done is go on vacation without saying anything.What a loser and a decisive one at that.The man is bankrupt of ideas and its showing.

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