MORE CRIMINALS BEING SENT BACK

BARBADOS MAY soon be forced to absorb more criminal deportees from
the United States.

The criminal aliens who are soon to be released were originally sent
to prison for drug dealing and it is expected that about 3 500
inmates, some of them from the Caribbean, Bajans included, could
have their terms shortened within the next few months.

That's going to happen because of a decision by the United States
Sentencing Commission to lighten punishment retroactively for some
drug crimes. It's a move that could eventually free as many as 20
000 inmates who were sent to federal prison for drug dealing.

Some of them could be freed as early as the middle of next year, if
not sooner, but the bulk of them would have to wait while judges
review their sentences.

Criminals who are not American citizens are automatically deported.

In a 7-0 decision, the Commission, which sets sentencing guidelines
for the nation's federal courts, stated that it was wrong for the
courts to impose longer sentences for crimes involving crack cocaine
than for offences involving chemically identical powdered white cocaine.

Drug of choice

While crack is favoured by Blacks in poor neighbourhoods where many
West Indians live, the white stuff is the drug of choice of whites,
especially suburban dwellers. The upshot: Blacks, including
thousands of West Indians, were given stiffer prison terms for
crack, some as long as 22 years, while whites, who used white
cocaine, served much shorter times behind bars.

That explains why 85 per cent of the federal prison inmates
convicted of drug offences are Black.

The Commission has ordered that beginning on March 3, 2008, those
behind bars for crack cocaine offences could petition trial judges
to have their sentences reviewed, and that process was expected to
spring thousands of convicted criminals in 2008. Bajans, Jamaicans,
Trinidadians and others in the region are expected to be among them.

Michael King, Barbados' Ambassador in Washington, said while he was
unable to say how the Commission's action would affect Bajans in
federal prisons, some of them could benefit from the ruling.

Not aware

"I can't predict the impact because I am not aware as to the number
of persons whom the US would be preparing to send back home as
criminal deportees," he said.

"I don't know their thinking in terms of who or how many. But I can
assure you that if this is the case, almost every country in the
Caribbean is likely to be receiving some criminal deportees as they
are released.

"It will be another challenge that they will have to face up to. But
I really can't predict what will happen and what the numbers are in
the United States."

Not available

Although exact figures aren't available for Barbados, several
hundred Bajans, at least 600, have been deported from the US after
serving time in federal and state prisons for drug and other
criminal offences since 1996. At least 20 000 criminal aliens were
sent back to Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Guyana,
Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, Suriname and other countries in
the region during the past 11 years.

Many law enforcement officials and researchers in the Caribbean have
blamed criminal aliens for contributing to the mushrooming incidence
of crime in the region, especially in Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago
and the Dominican Republic.

While Barbados is among a few Caribbean nations which didn't link
the rise in crime to the deportees, officials in Jamaica, Trinidad
and Tobago, St Lucia, Guyana, St Kitts-Nevis and the Bahamas have
said the deportees were definitely involved in criminal activity.

The nations asked the Bush Administration and Congress to change the
law to reduce the flow of deportees. In June, when Caricom leaders
met with US President George Bush at the State Department in
Washington, he rejected pleas to amend the laws to allow some
convicted criminals, especially those who came to the US as
children, but never became naturalised citizens, to remain in the US
after they had served prison terms.

However, the US is working with a few Caribbean states to help
finance a criminal alien re-integration programme there in those states.

"The United States has been working with three Caricom countries
looking at projects for the re-integration of criminal aliens and
they are Bahamas, Guyana and Jamaica," said the Barbados envoy.

Being considered

"I am not sure of the state of play with regard to those
initiatives, but it is my understanding that the broader issue of
the deportees is being considered at the regional level."

In a stunning move, the US Supreme Court gave federal judges more
discretion when they impose sentences for drug offences. Previously,
they were forced to hand down sentences based on overarching
guidelines that imposed stiffer sentences for drug dealers in poor
neighbourhoods than whites in the suburbs.

Opponents of the mandatory sentences had contended for years that
the disparity gave Whites an easier passage than Blacks who were
often given lengthy sentences for small amounts of crack cocaine
while Whites were often spared after being convicted of possessing
larger quantities of white cocaine.

"At its core, this question is one of fairness," said Judge William
Sessions 111 of the US District Court in Vermont who also sits on
the Commission. "This is an historic day. This system of justice is,
and must always be colour bind."