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Eliminate concurrent sentencing

Michael A. Dingwall (michael_a_dingwall@hotmail.com)

Sometime ago a man was convicted of committing several serious crimes in Jamaica. When the time for sentencing came, he was slapped with a 90-year sentence. He was sentenced to jail for thirty years for each of the three crimes for which he was convicted. However, he was sentenced concurrently – that is, he was sentenced to serve the three sentences at the same time. His 90-year sentence was thus reduced to thirty years. However, is this a good thing?

I am not sure where this principle of concurrent sentencing came from. As far as I know, if someone is given five 10-year prison terms at hard labour concurrently, does he has to work five times harder than the one who is given a single 10 year prison term at hard labour? I really don’t think so!

There can be very little doubt that crime in Jamaica is spinning out of control. It is clear that the security forces have lost control and the government clearly is at a loss as to the solutions. One sure way in which crime can be controlled is through deterrence. If potential criminals think that they will be caught and punished severely for serious crimes, then many of them would think twice before doing it. If they feel that they will be punished lightly, then they won’t think twice.

Perhaps this is one reason why we have more criminals than we need to. If criminals (and potential criminals) think that they can be dragged to the court for three crimes and effectively be convicted for only one, then many of them won’t mind. We still don’t understand that prison life is actually a psychological boost for some of these criminals. Many of them boast to their friends how they are bad – and this badness is proven by their incarceration. This is one of the very strange aspects of our culture.

Also, concurrent sentencing gives the public the impression that when convicted criminals are convicted for multiple crimes, they are punished for one and slapped on the wrist for the others. The Jamaican people already have a very low regard for our justice system and concurrent sentencing does nothing to raise that regard. It is also partly for this reason why many people think that when they hold on to a suspected criminal, it is better if they administer “true” justice and not the system.

Concurrent sentencing does not help in the fight against crime. It does very little to deter potential criminals – especially in a culture such as ours. It is in fact a “let-off” as we would say in Jamaica. If we really want to send a very strong message to our criminals, then we should do away with concurrent sentencing.

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