Text Size
Print
Email
International News
- Text Size
- Print
- Email
20% of population in the Cayman Isles has a criminal conviction
About 20 per cent of the Cayman Islands population, (10,067 persons), has a criminal conviction according to a Royal Cayman Islands Police Service (RCIPS) response to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request.
The FOI request which was made by local defence attorney Peter Polack was issued on 16 January 2015, some five months after the initial request was made making it severely late according to the FOI law.
The FOI response also did not address numerous information requests made by Mr Polack, such as; information providing statistics on numbers and types of specific offences. The RCIPS stated that the office was currently understaffed by seven and the Criminal Records Office would have to divert resources to search 10,067 records.
Mr Polack sought an internal review, which was denied by Commissioner of Police, David Baines, who stated, “To identify which offences and these numbers, would require the manual search of every paper record which, in the circumstances, would be unduly time consuming and divert the limited resources we have from completing their primary duties.”
Commissioner Baines further explained that, “the computerised system is limited; in short in 2001 a review of criminal records was undertaken and a nominal index was made and computerised. This unfortunately did not permit or facilitate the computerised recording of every offence. As a result a manual search is the only means of finding the data you require conducted. The nominal record merely directs one to a paper record on which all convictions are recorded.”
Mr Baines did seek to provide information on hand to Mr Polack’s request that did not require too much of a search of the 10,067 records. He explained that the collective criminality spanned more than 50 years with the total number of crimes recorded as convictions conservatively estimated in excess of 100,000.
On 4 February 2015, the very same day that Mr Polack received the internal review response, he sent an appeal to the Information Commissioner’s Office
There are numerous causes for Cayman’s high criminal conviction rate but the main ones are the lack of expunging minor offences from the system and also the decriminalising of minor offences.
Mr Polack has put forward ideas he believes would reduce the conviction rate of the country which would help free up the courts and give more Caymanians a clean criminal record.
Mr Polack stated that, “following on from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Law expunge certain criminal records absolutely for minor offences. Jamaica passed a bill in October 2014 to expunge minor offences. A knock on effect would be an immediate increase in employable Caymanians with a clean criminal record.” He also explained that the Rehabilitation of Offenders Law does not expunge offences from a person’s record.
He also advocated for the decriminalisation of minor traffic and criminal offences alluding to a possible solution of administrative fines. “Administrative fines have been a part of Customs enforcement for many years, often significant amounts. Although a non-court appearance fine system exists for traffic offences it still creates a criminal record.”
Mr Polack also stated that a case review panel would be beneficial to review pending cases and what the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions has done, which may reduce the case load especially in Summary Court.
Mr Polack’s final recommendation was for a serious crime conviction review panel. This panel could be made up of retired judges and review cases upon request to consider expunging records for offences over 10 years old, where no other successive conviction had occurred. The panel could consider single offence convictions, non-violent offenders, dated convictions and offences committed between the ages of 18-25 with no further offences.
The Grand Court had 118 pending cases in January 2015 with 23 of those cases from 2012. This is up from just 30 pending at the end of 2005. The Summary Courts deal with about 10,000 cases in a year. In 2004 there were 4341 Summary Court cases and in 2008 it was around 9678.
2024 The Background Investigator. All Rights Reserved.