PACT may increase gun crime penalties
(CNS): Premier Wayne Panton has said that the Cayman Islands Government is considering increasing the penalties relating to the possession of unlicensed firearms in light of the persistent reports of gun violence across the islands. Following a National Security Council meeting on Tuesday, he said that they had agreed to review the Firearms Act (2008 Revision) as a matter of urgency.
The law already mandates a minimum ten-year sentence for anyone convicted of illegal gun possession, even if that weapon or the person holding it has never been involved in any crimes, unless the court finds exceptional circumstances. The maximum term for the worst case of offending for the possession of a gun is currently twenty years.
Because of the mandatory minimum sentence, dozens of people, young men in particular, have been jailed for lengthy periods, even if their possession of weapons was fleeting, resulting in disproportionate punishments compared to criminal cases where a weapon was involved but never recovered.
Although it has been in place for more than fifteen years, the mandatory sentence has not had any material effect on gun crime, which has continued to rise and fall.
According to the RCIPS 2022 crime report, last year, there were 25 gun and imitation firearm possession cases — a more than 50% increase from 2021. However, there were also 25 gun possession offences recorded in 2017, a significant decrease from 2016, when 36 cases were reported — eight years after the government introduced the mandatory minimum sentence.
But public perception, as well as the realities, about the level of gun crime continues to place pressure on politicians. Responding to the concerns, the premier said that the safety of people remained the top priority of the government.
“The continued proliferation and use of illegal firearms in this country will not be tolerated, and we’re determined to limit these threats,” he said in the statement issued following reports of gun crime over the weekend. “The National Security Council, as of [Tuesday] agreed as a matter of urgency to review the Firearms Law (2008 Revision) to consider recommendations to Cabinet on increasing the penalties for possession of firearms,” he said.
Panton spoke about the reports on Sunday evening, which police have now said were not as serious as initially thought.
“Last Sunday evening was interrupted by reports of multiple gunshots, and while it has now been indicated by the Royal Cayman Islands Police Service (RCIPS) that it was likely only one incident, my colleagues and I are concerned that this behaviour continues to negatively impact our community,” the premier stated. “The RCIPS, under the leadership of Commissioner Kurt Walton, has our full support, and we are confident that cases will be resolved. Success in doing so is greatly assisted by information from the community at large.”
Panton urged people with any information that might be helpful to police to share what they know with the RCIPS on their confidential top line at 949-7777.
See Panton’s address on Facebook.
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25 years minimum would be a good start, with the 30% discount for early admission would end up with at least 17.5 years. By then hopefully they would have grown up by then.
Criminal element has now taken over this little Place.
Caymanian youth have taken on the Jamaican corner boy mentality in which guns do majority of the talking and they are certainly the preferred means of settling disputes. 25 yrs minimum will certainly have even the most hardened criminal think twice. Sentences cannot be reduced or halved because this makes the whole punishment ineffective. Effective, proactive policing such as intelligence gathering and raids need to be the order of the day.
You need to deport anyone on a work permit who flouts the gun laws. Send them home. As for caymanians a longer sentence is the answer to keep them off the streets for longer. If the perpetrators think they may lose their liberty or get removed from the country they may think twice. Cayman you need to look at some of the Northern European countries gun laws and follow suit. Some countries have had no gun violence since changing the laws
and their families.
Once there is no belief that increasing those penalties will result in a reduction in gun related offenses.
Increase the penalty, better than more stupid laws, in the USA we have loads of gun laws…like criminals care about gun laws, isn’t murder against the law, oh yea criminals don’t even care about that….
Would be better served legalizing abortion.
Sure idiot. Criminals commit crimes. Babies are innocent. See the difference?
Exactly 1202.
Or teach the silly Teenage..Baby mammas to be……CONTRACEPTION, and the consequences of sex with a man who won’t use protection.
Stop Importing Criminals into the Cayman islands Pact and PPM. The basic principle is More Laws More Criminals!You oblivious and conveniently out touch political morons! benefiting from the entire criminal enterprises you help create.Unfortunately you seem to think the people whom you victimize are stupid to your complicity and contribution to this criminal situation.Harsher laws is going to do very little or nothing to deter crime but it deceives the victims and citizens in to believing you doing something concrete about crime when in fact you are not.
We have gun but no 1 DON??? the problem is criminals coming from Jamaica and elsewhere our issue is Immigration not prison sentences Mr Wayne Panton and Governor Owen STOP Playing Games with Caymanians PACT!please deal with the REAL Problem!
How about enforcing the traffic laws so that you catch more criminals. Police just drive by cars that have tint too dark or a blacked out license plate. RCIPS doesn’t care to do their job. Time to cut their pay and then if they want more money per month let them get a percentage of the tickets they issue for infractions. Hopefully then we would actually see them on the roads controlling these terrible drivers.
If you think you can fix the standard of driving by issuing tickets I suspect you’re part of the problem. Half of our drivers are unsafe to drive irrespective of what speed they are doing.
*irregardless
*irregardless is a totally made up and self nullifying term, bandied about by those who feel they must demonstrate their superior education and intellect!
Worked like a charm, wound you up, didn’t it?
No such word…I bet you also Behoove .
Now THAT was funny!
Kudos.
So you think no police on our roads is the only solution? You are part of the problem if you think enforcing traffic laws is useless.
i remember back in the day even if it looked like you were speeding you were getting pulled over. seen a car blow right across the police on the road, i looked back expecting to see the police turn around. He just kept going along his way
If someone is willing to use a gun to kill, they will not be concerned about gun laws.
Yup. The death penalty should be invoked for murderers. Real actual justice.
Broad daylight execution in George Town a few weeks ago, yards from police HQ.
Here here! I’m behooved to admit progress is being made. Upon much empirical research and looking at the big gun photo of this article further laws should be put in place on the size as well for I have seen a number o BBC and anything beyond 10 inches long can inflict a devastating blow to the recipient not being able to walk properly afterwards and organs rearranged. Public safety is important and a Cayman registry of anyone packing heat of that size should be disclosed to the public.
It is the calibre of the gun and muzzle velocity, not its length, Serial Behoover, which determines the weapon’s foot-pounds and impact.
In skilled hands, even a lowly .25 calibre (much less powerful that most .22s) can deliver a lethal blow.
I disagree. It appears you have not seen o BBC. I agree with the calibration and rapid fire but the size anything bigger than 10 inches long makes a huge difference.
You have no idea of what you are talking about. Size of projectile and thrust equals impact. Doesn’t make a tinker’s damn about the length of the weapon.
The only way in which the length of the gun matters is the distance and accuracy to which a target can be hit.
Wrong! you have no idea what you’re talking about. Clearly you have not felt the wrath of 10 inch+ o BBC rapid fire regardless of accuracy.
The concept of irony and satire are totally lost on these reply posters!
LOL at least you got the humor
You mean, “hear hear”?
…Do it like yesterday. I am quite sure the majority of the populace is for it. In doing so, it will not make the ‘out of control gun violence’ worst that’s for sure.
Firearms are legal in cayman most people don’t know this. Yes its very strict but if your wealthy and can afford the membership to the gun ranges and big safes and police check yeah sure you can own a gun in cayman.
Issue is all the criminals know most people dont have guns let alone the people who do have guns are afraid to use them because the self defense law is so crappy here.
They can put the sentence to 200 years, people will still abuse the system in Cayman they don’t give a shit.
Unless the population wants to spend millions building new prisons to harbor all theses people. CIG really needs to sit down and decide if they need a real police force to clean up the island or just legalize guns for everyone.
Criminals all ready have guns, the public doesn’t. Criminals don’t want legal guns just like they don’t want legal drugs.
This is gonna get down voted like no tomorrow. People need to accept that hundreds of guns are coming on the island every month and the police catch very little.
Good point.
Harsher sentences on their own will not address the issue. Look at the United States. More incarceration and more crime. Dig deeper. Figure out what is going on. Lots of speculation but no one really knows. Unfortunately I don’t think the current crop of politicians and civil servants have the ability or even care that much. Maybe some new blood. UK takeover is last resort hope it doesn’t get that bad.
Longer sentences, not harsher sentenses. Need to keep thm off the street as long as possible. Let middle age calm them down.
How about not letting people with firearms or violence offences out after 50% of their sentences? How about not allowing the police to grant bail for charges involving firearms or carrying a potential jail sentence of over a year so they can commit more crimes whilst awaiting trial – they want bail, persuade a judge not a fellow countryman.
Oooowwwww, now I’m scared.
Even if you brought back the death penalty it wouldn’t change anything. Anyone with a criminology, sociology, statistics or history degree can tell you that increasing penalties like this doesn’t work and often just adds a burden on society.
Maybe they should ask KPMG for an analysis and report on this! Cayman government loves to squander the people’s money.
Check Singapore. it does work
This measure seems every bit as effective and ill-conceived as CIG’s move to control cars on the road by limiting imports to vehicles that are less than seven years old.
I mean…….. what will either of these laws change? In the case of the guns, people who choose to possess unlicensed guns don’t care if the penalty is 5, 10, 50, 500 years; they have chosen to break the law and own the guns.
In the case of the auto imports, this will primarily affect work permit holders, but to a lesser extent all of us. So now we have to buy cars from local used car dealers at approximately twice the cost of importing from Japan. How will this relate to less cars on the road? WE can ONLY drive ONE car at a time.
Logical disconnect in both cases.
Yep, I agree with you completely!
Great!
Care to prosecute fronting?
Care to prosecute theft of pension monies by unscrupulous employers?
Care to prosecute theft of steel by unscrupulous contractors?
Then there is the intentional releasing of cats into the wild, and errant light poles that jump in front of minister’s cars.
Obviously the current law doesnt work. 10 yrs then 7 for owning up fast then lawyers begging gets it to 4 or 5 then out in 3 . Result wheres my next gun. 20 yrs no time off for jack. That might work better
Yeah, but possession is only 9/10ths of the law, meaning that 9 years is in fact the minimum sentence, not 10.
Criminals don’t care about the law so this will have little to no effect.
We need proactive solutions that work not reactivate legislation to be ignored.
A move away from concurrent sentencing will go far to stem the tide.
Amen to that! The current incentive is to bundle as many crimes in a short period as the penalty for one conviction or 20 is the same! Do the crimes, STACK the TIME!
Make it 50 years to life minimum and a public caning of 250 whacks.
In the 1980s Rotary had a successful format for a gun amnesty/buyback program.
It can be updated and tweaked to suit our current situation….if government and the Police are so inclined.
I know that those previously involved would be happy to help if called upon.
Who shot Dr Frank? #unsolvedmysteries
If someone is willing to shoot and kill a person in cold blood, do you really think a few extra years in prison for getting caught with the gun before committing the crime is a deterrent? Wayne is pulling at straws. Have an annual gun amnesty.
Stop immigration from Jamaica and we won’t have crime.
PACT won’t do shit.
3.25 Yeah, you’re right , cos they don’t want to upset Kenny Saunders and Seymour’s GTC and BT East and West wannabe Jamaican gangstas.
This is utterly misconceived. We already have stiff and largely mandatory sentences for firearms offence- do we really think that the reason people continue to commit them is because they are only risking ten years in prison rather than 14? The sort of person who is deterred by a longer sentence is the sort of person who isn’t going to commit the offence anyway in the first place.
The only thing that works is effective enforcement, and at the moment that isn’t happening. Part of the blame for that lies with RCIPS, but a greater part with the community at large who protect those with access to firearms by not speaking out.
Where a culture of respect for such people, or at least tacit acceptance of their activities ’, is it any surprise that offending is on the rise? You can only sentence the criminals that you catch.
you need to add “…the criminals that you catch AND successfully prosecute.”
I, for one, do not speak out at the levels needed, because although I used to when I did, not only did the police not protect me – they told the criminals where they got their information from!
When the police start being trustworthy (including by arresting and prosecuting their own with consistency whenever warranted) THEN they can expect more cooperation.
Very well put! It is clear that the already strict penalties don’t make a difference. The people who are suggesting these harsher penalties don’t seem to understand that criminals are indifferent to the law in the first place and increasing the harshness of the penalties will not change this mindset.
Ok so no harsh penalties and let’s build the a new Northward resort for a $100 million so they will be well fed and comfortable.
That should make our hoodlums stop and think….!!!
Currently most of these hoodlums are receiving 7 years and with good behavior, are out in 5yrs. They’re not scared of that.
Change the law to 20yrs mandatory, for simple possession + 10 more if used in a crime, with no discretion to the Judge.
I bet most will think twice before handing a gun, with such a law. Our laws and judges are too soft on serious crime.
Gun crime, if continued unchecked, will ruin our economy, property values and these islands, period! Ask Jamaica!
Fear of being sent to prison used to be a major deterrent.
When prisoners were sent to Jamaica to serve their time, NOBODY wanted to go to prison because they were scared of the terrible conditions in Jamaican prisons.
Now prison not so bad , no big ting.
Our planned Hundred million dollar prison resort will completely remove any fear of incarceration…only the consultants being paid millions, stand to benefit , not Cayman.
Why “May”!? Just do it. Sheesh
B’cause we gone soft just like UK and Canada. The iron rod has been replaced by a foam baton. If it was my decision they’d be swinging from the yardarm.
OK don’t just consider it…DO IT..!
This won’t work. There is no hope as long as pop culture promotes the “Badman” lifestyle and the internet/social media continues to raise children. When was the last time we had a gun amnesty? Should happen every year.
“This won’t work”
So what’s your proposal then Nostradamus?
Head’s up, Cayman is not the only nation with TVs and exposure to pop culture. The only thing that won’t (or shouldn’t) work is giving up.
That culture you reference is not Caymanian. That culture, like the guns, is imported.
This is as much an immigration issue as anything.
We cannot control pop culture and we definitely cannot control the internet. We do not know that every gun that someone has is turned in during amnesty. Perhaps they have a spare one that they Can part with and it is turned in to take the heat off.Perhaps someone else knows about their possession of fire arms and they are afraid that they might squeal on them. Stranger things have happened. It seems impossible to police every square foot of the marine access where I understand that most of these guns are entering through, we can no longer sit and wring our hands and hope and pray that they will stop the trade, they won’t. Please go ahead and increase the penalties ASAP. If the gun is found in their vehicles take those too. Past time to get tough on crime!
I forget how many many guns were received from the last gun amnesty… Perhaps they could look into that again in addition to considering the higher penalties.