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Presidential pardons
Dear Editor,
I hold with President Granger on the granting of presidential pardons.
He has that right and there is no reason why in his best judgment he cannot or should not exercise right. President Granger has set his measurement criteria ( quite unlike the former president Ramoutar!), and in all reasonableness, he is right that youth should be given second chances. Being a devout man, the President full well knows how wayward youth can be and behave recklessly. Second chances do give them an opportunity to recognize the error of their ways and the hope to straighten out and fly right.
One slight variance I have with the President’s expression and that is that young people do have to be jailed when they foolishly, recklessly and disdainfully ignore the norms of proper societal behavior. I think the President was deeply thinking of the sentences meted out for what can be considered ‘trivial offence’, and therefore he is right to say that “Young people don’t have a right to be jailed”, given the trivial nature of the offence, but surely be punished in some form.
I suspect that apart from granting presidential pardons, that there is some support and follow up program that such pardoned persons would be expected or required to follow. In my view an assessment of those individuals would have been made before the pardon and the potential of full rehabilitation determined. The President would not want his exercise in granting a pardon to be a futile one.
For what it is worth, I would say that serious efforts should be made to channel the pardoned persons into meaningful occupations while enlarging their level of education. The more educated they become, the less likely they would want to become repeat offenders.
President Granger is on the right track.
Now Mister President, how about getting rid of that Camp Street prison and use the prison population to build for themselves a spacious residence somewhere up the East Coast or somewhere up the East Bank, either within commuting distance from Georgetown?
Carl Veecock
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