Longer sentences no deterrent to criminals, says Senator

A scientific, data-driven approach should be used in the island’s fight against the current wave of crime and violence.

This advice has come from Senator and university lecturer Dr Kristina Hinds, who has also suggested that the evidence has consistently shown that longer sentences are not normally a deterrent to crime.

Speaking on the floor of the Senate Chamber on Wednesday, on the Firearms (Amendment) Bill 2022, Dr Hinds welcomed many of the legislative changes being introduced with the new bill which provides for tougher sentences to those found guilty of firearm offences. However, she questioned if the changes to the legislation were based on scientific evidence to support the objective of deterrence or whether it was just a reactive measure.

“Is there evidence to suggest that harsher sentences act as a deterrent, or are we responding, as we should and as we must, to public sentiment and putting in place sentences to placate the public, that may not indeed do what they are supposed to do.

“I do not have any issue with increasing these sentences… I do not have any issue because I too got a kind of feeling of ‘lock them up’, but I am a person who wants things to be driven by evidence. So, what is the evidence and where is the evidence that suggests that this actually is going to address our problem,” she asked.

While noting the several initiatives being undertaken by Government to help combat the sharp rise in crime, including the appointment of Member of Parliament Corey Lane from his post as parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of People Empowerment and Elder Affairs, to the Office of the Attorney General as Minister of State with responsibility for Crime Prevention, she stressed that the extension of sentences has long been statistically proven to not have any significant influence on crime levels in various jurisdictions.

Dr Hinds, a Senior lecturer in Political Science and Head of the Department of Government, Sociology, Social Work and Psychology at the UWI’s Cave Hill Campus said that studies and academics have long noted that sentence length as a deterrent, is not currently supported by evidence.

“Bryan Lufkin, 2018, in an article called Criminal Myths notes that there is little evidence to suggest that the threat of prison time deters ex-prisoners from crime. Many indeed discount the future and do not think they will be caught,” she quoted.

Dr Hinds added: “The Justice Policy Institute notes that research has found that longer prison sentences do not deter future criminal offending. The evolving consensus in the field of criminal justice is that people are not deterred by severity of punishment, or sentence length, but the certainty and swiftness of being caught and receiving a sentence…this speaks now to policing rather than sentencing.”

Developed nations including Canada and the United States of America have also conducted numerous studies according to Dr Hinds, which have proven that the improvement in policing policies and early interventions have much more significant effects on crime in societies.

“I just want us to focus on what the evidence tells us about this,” she stressed… While I do not oppose this legislation, I continue to question how effective this will be in dealing with the problem that we have.

“I’m not saying that I accept gun crime, but there may be ways back for some of these people, and if the evidence that I have read is correct, it does indicate that the longer such persons remain imprisoned, the more likely they may be to re-offend, not less likely.”