Leela Ramdeen: Death penalty not a deterrent

THERE is no evidence the death penalty deters crime.

Greater Caribbean for Life chair and attorney Leela Ramdeen expressed this view during a virtual forum on the death penalty, hosted on Thursday by several foreign embassies.

She said there is no evidence anywhere which suggests the death penalty is a deterrent to crime. Ramdeen also claimed the death penalty has been used indiscriminately in some countries against certain classes of people.

She said there should be a moratorium on the implementation of the death penalty and argued for tit to be replaced by alternative sentencing which is fair and proportionate

Co-ordinator for International Law, Ministry of Foreign Relations of the Mexican government, Salvador Tinajro Esquivel said the last time the death penalty was implemented in Mexico was in 1961.

Capital punishment in Mexico was officially abolished on March 15, 2005. In December 2005, the death penalty was abolished in all penal codes through reforms to the Mexican Constitution.

Esquivel said homicides in Mexico have dropped, reaching their lowest number in 2007, two years after the death penalty was abolished. The Mexican authorities have since turned their attention to the greater security threats posed by organised crime, arms and human trafficking.

Esquivel said the abolition of the death penalty in Mexico had allowed greater attention to be paid to getting to the origin of violent crime.