Two critical pieces of legislation that will impose stricter penalties for murder in Jamaica will be placed before a Joint Select Committee to ensure wide consultation.
The bills – the Offences Against the Person (Amendment) Act 2023 and Criminal Justice (Administration) (Amendment) Act 2023 – were tabled in the House of Representatives on February 21.
Minister of Justice Delroy Chuck said members of the committee will be named at the earliest sitting.
He explained the increased mandatory minimums will provide greater alignment between the sentencing regimes governing serious crimes and the public’s expectations of the justice system.
“The possibility of the imposition of a more punitive sentence will go a long way in preserving the credibility of Jamaica’s justice system in the eyes of individuals traumatized by the untimely death of their loved ones,” the minister said.
He said Jamaica has the highest homicide rate among 22 Latin American and Caribbean countries.
“Our extreme reality necessitates that the legislative framework governing mandatory minimum sentences for murder, surpass the average threshold used in other jurisdictions,” Chuck said. “These legislative amendments will aid in the fight against the country’s soaring crime rate by ensuring that the applicable penalty matches the severity of the crime.”
He said in Section 3(1) (b) of the Offences Against the Person (Amendment) Act, the proposed amendment is to increase the mandatory minimum sentence of imprisonment from 15 to 45 years.
It also proposes increasing the mandatory minimum sentence to be served before being eligible for parole, where the offence is capital murder, from 20 years to 50 years under 3(1C)(a), which deals with eligibility for parole.
The proposal is also to increase the mandatory minimum sentence to be served before being eligible for parole, where the sentence is imprisonment for life from 15 years to 45 years, under section 3(1C)(b)(i).
Additionally, it is proposed to increase the mandatory minimum sentence to be served before being eligible for parole, where a sentence of a term of years is moved from ten years to 35 years under 3(1C)(b)(ii).
The justice minister said the imposition of mandatory minimum sentences via legislation is intended to send a strong message that the society will not tolerate certain forms of criminal behavior.
Regarding the Criminal Justice (Administration) (Amendment) Bill, it proposes to amend section 42(F) of the Criminal Justice (Administration) Act by increasing the term of years to be deemed as life imprisonment from 30 years to 50 years, where the offence committed is murder.
Chuck said the starting point for calculating the reduction in the sentence is usually life imprisonment and the aim of this proposed amendment is to maintain an incentive scheme for defendants to plead guilty, while ensuring that the reduced sentence is not inordinately low, having regard to the serious nature of the offence.
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