Attorney General Allyson Maynard-Gibson said she does not believe that granting bail to murder suspects is a "death sentence". Maynard-Gibson was referring to the recent spate of murders involving young men recently released on bail.
In most of those cases, Commissioner of Police Ellison Greenslade said those men were on bail for indictable offenses.

"I definitely do not think granting bail is a death sentence," Maynard-Gibson said in a recent interview. "Having said that, I do note that there are persons who have been let out on bail who have committed further offenses or have been killed. I want to say we must not, in our country, throw out the baby with the bathwater. We must continue to recognize that it is the courts that make decisions about these matters."

Bishop Simeon Hall, who chaired the crime commission under the former government, has called on lawmakers to revisit the issue of bail as it has become a death sentence for countless young men in the country. Hall said the rise in vigilante justice is growing.

"While we must denounce persons who take the law into their own hands, it is disconcerting that people have become so discouraged, untrusting of our judicial system, that they take the law into their own hands," Hall said.

Maynard-Gibson suggested that very few people have been granted bail for murder and murder related matters this year.
She said none were granted bail in January and two were granted bail in February.

"In those matters, they were granted [bail] because persons had been in prison for longer than three years," she said. "I have not yet gotten the final statistics for March. It is very important for all of our citizens to take seriously the issue of witness intimidation.

"I think the assassination or murder of a witness, a person out on bail who may be a witness or in a matter, is extremely serious.  We as citizens, if we would like to see our system work, have to take seriously this matter and ought to be reporting any  knowledge any of us have about this offense. The system cannot work where witnesses are interfered with or intimidated."

Greenslade said this trend will not improve if people charged with serious crimes are allowed back into communities where they often reoffend.

In February, Maynard-Gibson said in 2014 there were 425 bail applications for murder. Of that number, only 33 applications were granted, she said. Last year, parliamentarians passed the Bail Amendment Bill which aimed to "radically reduce" the number of incidents in which accused people can assert that their case was not tried within a reasonable period of time.

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