Attorneys protest against 'shaming' sentences

ATTORNEYS representing social activist and radio personality Barrington “Skippy” Thomas have written to the chief magistrate seeking information on a recent, but unusual, form of punishment being imposed on criminal offenders: to brandish signs in public.

One independent senator has called for it to stop.

In recent times, on at least three occasions, a magistrate has imposed, as part of the court’s punishment, an order that the offender wears a sign acknowledging his transgression of the law.

On two occasions, two men were ordered to wear a sign that said “Thou shall not steal” and “I will not rob again,” while another was ordered to display a sign with the words, “I must not litter.”

In a letter to the editor of a daily newspaper, Independent Senator Hazel Thompson-Ahye called on the magistrates who had imposed such punishment to stop immediately.

She described the punishment as “harmful” and constituted “stigmatising shaming.”

“It causes the offender to be labelled as a thief. It does not evoke remorse in the offender,” she wrote, as she called for holistic training of magistrates and restorative practices.

In their letter to Chief Magistrate Maria Busby Earle-Caddle on Thursday, attorneys Rhea Khan, Dinesh Rambally, Kiel Taklalsingh and Stefan Ramkissoon, of Sovereign Chambers, asked for the source of law used by the magistrates to make the orders; the sentencing policy which suggested it was an accepted form of punishment; and the court extracts of the cases in which that particular form of sentence was imposed.

Khan said judicial sentencing should not be arbitrary or excessive and the sentence imposed should be proportionate to the offending conduct.

Describing it as an “unusual and unorthodox one,” she wrote there was no provision in law for making such an order.

“A magistrate is a creature of statute; he/she must act within the bounds of the law and must exercise his discretion within the four corners of the prevailing statute.

“Display of signage as a form of punishment seems to be trending with the magistracy and may very well be a practice without any basis in law. It is quite frankly astonishing that the display of signage could constitute a sufficiently severe enough form of punishment for someone guilty of robbery.”

While maintaining that Thomas was not advocating for lenient sentencing for offenders, Khan said her client was concerned about the rule of law.

“Display of signage does not protect the public from persons who display a propensity to commit serious offences such as robbery. Separate and apart from being unlawful and/or ultra vires the relevant statutory provisions, this policy and/or practice may be endangering ordinary citizens who have been deprived of the benefit of having such persons incarcerated,” she wrote.

In one of the matters Khan cited, a Sea Lots man, who was ordered to hold up a sign outside a police station after pleading guilty to robbery-related offences in December, was sentenced to nine months by a Mayaro magistrate in February for robbing a fitness group.

Thompson-Ahye pointed out his carrying the sign in December did not act as a deterrent to future wrongdoing, asking, “So what was the point of this exercise in futility?”

Khan also pointed out that “the fact that the same person who was previously ordered to display this sign promptly recommitted another similar offence is perhaps demonstrative of the illogical and ineffective nature of this form of punishment.”