ABSTRACT
Keywords: death penalty, capital punishment, imprisonment, homicide, Trinidad and Tobago, deterrence
Introduction
* Sociology Department, !\'ewYork University, 295 Lafayette St, 4 Floor, New York, f\'Y 10012, USA; dg4@nyu.edu. I'Ve located one further study, a time series analysis off\'igerian homicides, robbelies and executions covering the period 1967-85
124 GREENIlERG AND AGOZINO
In recent years, Trinidad and Tobago's high execution rates have become a thing of the past. The number of executions actually carried out in Trinidad and Tobago fell dramatically in 1975. In more than 30 years since then, only a modest number of hangings have taken place, the last one in 1999. Though the courts continue to impose death sentences, none has been carried out in a little more than ten years. A large number of prisoners awaiting execution have had sentences commuted because the highest court of appeals for Trinidad and Tobago-the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of the House of Lords in England-ruled in November 1993 that it would be cruel and unusual punishment for a prisoner sentenced to death to be held in prison awaiting execution for more than five years" (Amnesty International n.d.). Since then, defence attorneys have invariably been able to protract the appeals process beyond that point, so that executions have not been carried out for the last decade. 6 Popular sentiment favours the death penalty and a number of politicians have called for legal changes designed to facilitate executions. For example, (the then) Prime Minister Patrick Manning said that, because 'capital punishment is an essential element in crime fighting', he wanted a resumption of executions (Amnesty International 2009b). In December
126 GREENIlERG AND AGOZINO
Description of Major 'Trends Trends in murders and executions in Trinidad and TobagolO starting in 1945 can be seen in Figure 1. For roughly 20 years, homicide levels remained at a fairly constant level, with just minor fluctuations from year to year. That level was not remarkably high. For example, in 1970, the rate was 5.95 per 100,000-slightly lower than the 7.9 homicides per 100,000 occurring in the United States in the same year (according to the FBI's Grime in the United States). It follows that the much higher level of homicides in Trinidad and Tobago in the last decade cannot be attributed to a long-standing 'culture of violence' such as Wolfgang and Ferracuti (1982) posit to explain spatial variation in homicide rates.
