JAMAICA: Growing opposition to the return of the tamarind switch

KINGSTON, Nov 08 (IPS) - Prison authorities say they are going ahead with preparations for the flogging of convicted felons, but human rights advocates and some attorneys continue to denounce recent decisions by judges who have ordered a return to the tamarind switch.

"I am of the view that flogging must be a category of inhuman and degrading treatment," says Delroy Chuck, attorney-at-law.

Chuck says flogging infringes Section 17 (1) of the Constitution dealing with protection against inhuman or degrading punishment.

Bishop Herro Blair, of the Deliverance Centre feels the reintroduction of flogging will do no good. He says the already barbaric environment in Jamaican prisons was "graduating hardened criminals," and that flogging was not going to help the situation.

The debate on flogging began heating up in late August when a high court judge in this northern Caribbean island ordered that 23- year-old Errol Pryce be whipped as part of his punishment for stabbing and crippling the mother of his girlfriend

Pryce is to receive six strokes with the tamarind switch as well as serve four years in prison at hard labour.

His attorney, CJ Mitchell, says Pryce is looking towards the possible flogging "with great fear and apprehension" and the thrust of an appeal will revolve around the corporal punishment aspect of the sentence.

Mitchell says he would have preferred that an arrangement be made in which Pryce would be ordered to support the victim financially as part of the sentence. He says such a sentence would be appropriate because the victim is now confined to her bed and has no financial help except from her children who can barely help themselves.

"The flogging will mean nothing to her in terms of assistance," Mitchell argues.

But the judge, Carl Patterson, said at the time that the lashes were ordered because of the "reprehensible" nature of the crime.

Since Patterson's ruling, a judge in St. James, in the northern section of the island, has ordered that three men be similarly whipped for the armed robbery of three Italian tourists. The men also received prison sentences of 19 months each.

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service