TRINIDAD-Roman Catholic Archbishop says hanging is not a deterrent to murder.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC – Roman Catholic Archbishop Jason Gordon has described hanging as “state-sponsored murder,” saying that the death penalty is not a deterrent to the high number of murders committed in Trinidad and Tobago.

Speaking on a radio program here, the senior Roman Catholic official recalled being sent to a prison to pray for someone about to be executed.

“I went, and about five of us prayed with him…it was so cold and calculated. This was state-sponsored murder, you know. We have to call it for what it is. It is one thing to say bring them, hang them, but it is state-sponsored murder, which I don’t see as any better than a villain or a bad boy doing murder. Murder is murder,” he told radio listeners.

There have been no executions carried out in Trinidad and Tobago for over 20 years. The last hanging occurred on July 28, 1999, when Anthony Briggs was executed for murder.

Human rights groups here say that are approximately 45 individuals on death row in the country and over 1,300 awaiting murder trials.

The Archbishop recalled the 1999 executions of nine people “in a short time,” saying that those executions did not affect the murder rate.

“Check the murder rate before that nine hangings and check the murder rate right after for the next couple years,” he said, adding, “the murder rate escalated.

“So all those who say that hanging is the way to solve the problem of murder in the country are missing one key fact those nine hangings did not drop the murder rate. After those hangings, the murder rate went exponential,” he said, adding it doubled in two to three years, “and it hasn’t stopped climbing.”

Archbishop Gordon said the death penalty is not a deterrent, noting that there was only a one percent arrest at one stage, and the conviction rate “is meager also.”

He said that better surveillance is needed to get both arrests and convictions, warning that there is also the “systemic underdevelopment of communities” that has been going on from “generation to generation.”

He is urging the authorities to step back and say for the next 25 years, “this is our plan,” and regardless of who is in government, ensure the development of those communities, adding “because until those communities are developed, we can’t deal with the national security challenges or we can deal with it by becoming a police state.”