Anthropologist Dr. Herbert Gayle has said the resumption of hanging in Jamaica will not help to curb the country’s rising homicide rate.
During his contribution to the State of the Nation debate in the Senate, Government Senator Matthew Samuda called for the resumption of hanging, adding that a strong message should be sent to murderers.
But ppeaking on local television Tuesday morning, Dr. Gayle said science is not being included in the fight against crime.
Dr. Gayle noted he studied 221 repeat killers in nine countries, adding that the common factor is that they do not have family support.
He pointed out that in one case, a Jamaican started to kill at nine years old and by the time he was 21 years old, had murdered 33 people.
But Dr. Gayle believes that criminals can be rehabilitated.
“There are very few people who are irredeemable, they are either sociopaths or psychopaths who’ve gone too far, where without medicine, they can’t be helped. But the bulk of people – 97 per cent of persons who have gone out on the deep dark end can find back the light,” he insisted.
Still, he argued that there is need for communal support to fight the scourge of crime and violence.
“The society needs to ensure that the five per cent of Jamaican homes that are too vulnerable to exist, those five per cent of people need more than PATH, they need community…they need people around, they need the church to become active,” he urged.
