Dear Editor,
Those persons who think the authorities must negotiate with gun wielding thieves and child murderers should clarify their understanding of the criminal justice system.
It is uniquely Guyanese (I hesitate to say hopelessly naive) to think that the criminal mindset could be reasoned with, converted to decency and transformed into responsible citizenship through mere talk and negotiation.
Still, apparently many of us believe in the miracle of negotiating for goodness in the criminally inclined.
During their “enlightened” campaign of bonding with criminals and while singing ‘Kum ba yah’, would these folks also push for the elimination of prisons and agitate for the abolition of the Penal Code?
To the group who wrote in the Stabroek News of Friday 15th supporting Fr Malcolm Rodrigues’s call for a dialogue with killers I ask how many of your homes have been invaded; how many of your women folk raped; how many of your babies slaughtered in their sleep; how many of your bread winners cut down in a hail of bullets?
Would you still like to cuddle thugs and brigands if your family were among those assaulted and murdered?
Yours faithfully,
Arnold Chance
