Lawmakers back tougher prison sentences

Separate motions advocating an increase in prison sentences for repeat criminal offenders and for burglars who invade residents’ homes received unanimous approval from Cayman Islands lawmakers last week. 

One of the private members motions proposed by North Side MLA Ezzard Miller sought to create a version of the “three strikes and you’re out” rule adopted by a number of U.S. states. Mr. Miller advised the government to apply a maximum 10-year sentence for those convicted a third time of either robbery or burglary offenses.  

Private members motions are only advisory in nature. It would be up to the government to enact binding legislation based on those motions.  

“Everybody in my district knows who the four or five people who [do] all the robberies and burglaries are,” Mr. Miller said. “And when they’re incarcerated, we don’t have any problem. In recent times, there seems to be a lot of leniency in the court system.” 

The “three strikes” rule, as proposed by Mr. Miller, could also apply to businesses that buy and sell stolen goods. On a third offense for such activity, Mr. Miller suggested that the company lose its trade and business license in the Cayman Islands.  

Local pawnbrokers have protested in recent times that they have improved their working relationship with the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service and are actively reporting to officers the items they knew to be stolen. Reports from police regarding pawn shop cooperation have varied somewhat.  

Mr. Miller noted that between August and September, police reported they had recovered 21 television sets from various burglaries at one particular pawn shop.  

“They’re still operating,” he said. “One of my constituents had her jewelry stolen and she went to the store and found [the jewelry]. It was something like between $4,500 and $5,000 worth of jewelry that they had bought from the thief for $50.”  

Deputy Premier Moses Kirkconnell, speaking on behalf of the Progressives-led government, said the ruling party “was in a position to support” the three strikes rule and intended to bring what it referred to as a “Secondhand Dealers Bill” to the assembly to regulate pawn shops.  

Although he supports both proposals, and brought a private members motion seeking to increase criminal sentences in aggravated burglary cases which also passed unanimously, George Town MLA Joey Hew said government should be cautious when setting mandatory minimum sentences for any crime.  

“Not enough of the preventative type of sentencing is happening,” Mr. Hew said. “I would rather see one of our young people … reintegrated into society … than to see them spend a lifetime in jail.”  

In fact, legislators were asked not to support the three strikes proposal in its current form by members of a group calling itself the Youth Anti-Crime Trust or Youth ACT.  

The letter sent to lawmakers by group president Bonnie Anglin indicated: “While appearing to intuitively provide a quick fix, research and empirical data have shown that these measures have been ineffective as a deterrent to crime …  

“Empirical evidence has proven that ‘three-strikes-you’re-out’ is another one of these reactive laws that lead to unintended consequences, such as overcrowded prisons, a drain on a country’s financial resources, a misallocation of resources from constructive uses to ineffective solutions, while providing no evidence of a reduction in crime.” 

Mr. Miller, while acknowledging the urgent need to rehabilitate criminal offenders, said that community service sentences in cases where multiple burglaries had occurred were not getting the job done.  

“I’m not proposing that this three strikes and you’re out is the panacea for all crime, but it is one more step in the right direction,” he said.