'GIVE DRUG MULES MORE JAIL TIME'

... Says Antony Smith, British High Commissioner To Jamaica

ANTONY Smith, the British high commissioner, yesterday suggested that
Jamaica give longer jail sentences to drug 'mules' caught here as a means
of curbing the illegal narcotics trade.

"There is a case for saying that your sentencing policy is too lenient,"
said Smith.

"Someone who gets caught with two kilos of cocaine gets six to 18 months.
If you get 8,000 UKP for each trip and you get 12 months when you are
caught, then it's not a big problem."

Ironically, Smith's proposal for harsher jail sentences for drug couriers
came at the opening of a two-day conference at the Hilton Kingston hotel,
put on by the British charity group, Hibiscus, which has the opposite aim.

Hibiscus lobbies for shorter prison sentences and other forms of punishment
as alternatives to the average 10-year jail term that British courts
generally hand out to drug couriers.

The Jamaica conference is aimed at providing insights into the causes why
so many women and young people enter the drug trade and to suggest ways,
other than long prison sentences, of dealing with the problem.

Britain currently hosts approximately 1,700 Jamaicans -- 1,300 men and 400
women -- in its prisons.

Most of them are serving seven-year sentences for trafficking illegal
narcotics.

On the other hand, there are 132 British nationals in Jamaican prisons for
the same offences. All but two of them are serving average jail sentences
of two to three years.

The economics of drug trafficking and the relative leniency of the
sentencing in Jamaican courts make the risk worthwhile for couriers coming
to Jamaica, Smith suggested.

"One fellow who was caught told me that it was his ninth trip," Smith
noted. "This was the first time he had been caught. There's a case for
putting the sentences up."

While conference participants largely acknowledged that imposing long jail
sentences on women in particular, contributed to a worsening of the cycle
of poverty for their children, several conference speakers endorsed Smith's
get-tougher proposal.

"The sentences should go up," said the head of the police's narcotics
division, Superintendent Carl Williams. "I'm all for it. They should go up
and be publicised."

Williams conceded that many women are coerced into carrying drugs or are
fooled into believing that if caught they will be sent home, but said there
were others who were being coached by professional criminals.

They are taught, the narcotics division boss said, how to swallow the
drugs, how to walk convincingly through Customs, how to maintain their
composure, what to say to the Customs officials or the police, if caught.

The picture that Olga Heaven, director of Hibiscus' Female Prisoners
Welfare Project, painted of the average Jamaican drug courier in a British
jail was that of an ignorant, deprived woman in her mid-30s with three or
four children.

She said: "In many cases the women come from the slums of Jamaica or
Colombia, from the cities of countries in economic crisis. Some complain
that they were deceived or coerced by partners, landlords or money lenders.

"Most were experiencing severe financial problems prior to coming to the UK
and are first offenders. Many are decent, religious women with sound
reputations in their local communities, within which drug trafficking is
taboo."

Elroy Claxton, one of the barristers who came with the British delegation,
endorsed Heaven.

"(Most times) they are nice girls who are desperate," Claxton argued. "They
are not aware of the dangers. They are not aware that they are going to be
serving long sentences and they are unaware of the technology that British
Customs uses to catch drug couriers."

While there were people who would smuggle drugs for the money, Claxton
said, "the sadness is those people who are not aware (of the consequences)".

In recognition of this point, Ben Clare, the minister of state in the
Ministry of National Security Justice, suggested that what was needed was
an "intense public campaign" so that women are aware of the dangerous
consequences involved in "this most dangerous trade".