NCJ Number
132037
Journal
International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice Volume: 14 Issue: 1-2 Dated: (Spring-Winter 1990) Pages: 317-344
Date Published
1990
Length
28 pages
Annotation
The Jamaican Gun Court Act, in effect from 1974 to 1982, mandated that any court before which a case involving a firearm offense was brought was to immediately transfer that case to the Gun Court. Furthermore, a sentence of indefinite detention was mandatory where the accused was convicted of a firearms offense.
Abstract
Eventually, the legislation was found to be unconstitutional, and the Jamaican parliament amended the Act by replacing the indefinite sentence with a mandatory life sentence for all those convicted. This author suggests that the Act was functional for the continuation of the 2-party political system and social institutions of neo-colonial Jamaica by representing a "sellable" crime control program in the form of strict deterrence. The Act protected the existing dependent economic and social institutions because the government could use the law and the legal system to control and direct activist energies before they could lead to a mass social movement demanding fundamental political change. 5 notes and 54 references (Author abstract modified)