Paula – Jamaica Observer’s plan

The Director of Public Processes (DPP), Paula Llewellyn, says that her office will make an appeal before the Ministries of Finance and Justice for the hiring of a dedicated personnel of legal assistants in response to concerns about the absence of a sustained mechanism to maintain to witnesses and victims of informed crime of developments in their cases.

Llewellyn promised during a recent forum carried out by the Sir Arthur Lewis Institute for Social and Economic Studies (Salisses) of the University of the Western Indies, Mona, to explore the possibilities of a National Information and Notification System of Victims (NVINS) for Give real -time notices on critical developments in criminal matters.

The tool, which exists in several jurisdictions outside of Jamaica, generally notifies the victims of crimes on the dates of the court, the bail decisions, the status of probation and any change in the location of the offender or the release of custody . The information is confidential, free and available 24 hours a day.

Nvins was the focus of a 2019 witness care conference by Salises that produced several recommendations focused on the need to develop the ability to implement and maintain the system.

The Judge of the Supreme Court, Judge Vinette Graham-Allen, who is the judge in charge of the Case Administration Court, which ensures that the issues are properly prepared before being sent to trial, he told the forum that in multiple cases Witnesses and victims do not appear to the Court because they had not been informed.

“This is what I have found, the victims do not attend, or their witnesses, because they are not kept informed of the result of the case in each and every one of the occasions when they are presented before the court. So, naturally, what you find is that because they do not know the developments, nobody tells them. When the police are going to find them in the last address or known phone number, there is no answer, because that is not being done, ”he told the forum.

In response, Llewellyn admitted that there was a margin of improvement by arguing that the challenges faced by prosecutors and the witness care officer used by his office to monitor the witnesses were more than what appeared on the surface.

“I have heard with interest to what has been said and with the risk of balancing the boat in the middle of this entire academy there is an elephant in the room with which prosecutors have certainly to fight, and that is the question of the reluctage When we speak, we have to use a lot of moral move as prosecutors and try to identify why they are choosing not to participate in the program, ”said Llewellyn.

“Certainly, if we have email and phone numbers, we try to use that to involve witnesses, but you have several of them who opt for the process, change their numbers, change their addresses and you do it. Have the stranger that will take the payment to look the other way and give the defendants a BLY, including victims’ relatives, ”added the DPP.

She said that police investigators who are the “eyes and ears” of her street office, “are sometimes overwhelmed” and resources in the effort to keep witnesses and victims committed and informed.

“You may not know, many of our detectives, or police investigators, are not given data or credit in their phones to be able to keep in touch with the witnesses; It is through their own private efforts, so it is their money that they often have to use to connect with witnesses.

“We would really need about 15 legal assistants, or cases, to do that kind of work, which is one for the future. In the short term, we will have to see if we can prepare a justification to the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Justice to obtain more positions on our establishment in relation to even five or six people, so that with the digitalization of our records we can Our witness care officers constantly connect with our witnesses, ”said Llewellyn.

Meanwhile, the DPP proposed the development of a letter or victim policy that, he said, can be shared through a public education unit.

“Some Jamaicans are very closed culturally; You have the elephant in the ‘Dead Informador’ room, so we have to recognize this as part of the conversation, “he said.

The Senior Research Member in Salisses Dr. Dacia Leslie focused his comments on the recommendations of the 2019 witness care conference that, among other things, included considerations of a formal witness care network.

“The reality is that, with Jamaica, a murder rate in the vicinity of 52 per 100,000 population … There is no doubt that there is an urgent need to implement and formalize a victim notification system. We will have to pay attention to the mobilization of financial resources or others.

“The elephant in the room, the need for some 15 witness care officers, which means the need to assign resources and sustainability measures to implement. The conclusion is that victims must have access to timely information about whether criminals are being released or simply general information about the actions of their criminals, anything that affects their safety, ”said Leslie.

“Jamaica will need to develop the ability to support the implementation and maintenance of a formalized victims notification system,” Leslie added.