Hartley Neita

To me, rape is the most evil of crimes committed by one human being against another. And because it is usually committed against the gentler gender, and babies and children, it is a cruel and traumatic experience. Victims have to live with the memory for the rest of their lives, often with an unwanted pregnancy and sometimes with AIDS and other sexual diseases.

The increasing number of groups and individuals, who are engaged in apologising for these and other criminals, offer all sorts of reasons for the behaviour of these men. They did not grow under the guidance of a caring father, or their mothers were themselves raped and 'breeded', and so they do not know the goodness of positive mentoring.

The solution they offer is rehabilitation - middle-class seminars and fora, lectures and coddling. They can then be returned to society with certificates of promissory good conduct at functions covered by the news media. The hard-working organisers will, of course, be awarded with national honours at King's House on Heroes Day.

call to reintroduce hanging

Derrick Smith, the new Minister of National Security, has promised to try to reintroduce the punishment of hanging criminals for murder. In my book, rape under the threat of a gun or knife, or even verbally, is another dimension of murder. Sometimes, I wonder if our legislators think that if they impose serious punishments for rape, they could one day find themselves victims of the laws they enact!

It was not so with Senator Noel Monteith. He suggested eight years or so ago that rapists should be subjected "to a little thing called a vasectomy". Mark, this is a mild form of punishment as it only involves the surgical removal of parts of the sperm-carrying ducts in each testicle as a contraceptive method. Nevertheless, he received no support from his colleagues.

There was a time when a rapist could expect to be sentenced to lashes from the cat-o-nine. This was a round wooden handle, 16 inches long, and one-a-half inches in diameter, with nine thongs of tightly twisted cotton attached to one end of the handle - each thong being 30 inches long and three-sixteenth of one inch in diameter and knotted at the end. It was usually inflicted, whistling through the air, by a burly sergeant, between the shoulder and the waist.

These convicts were never able to wear a bathing suit again, and they rarely returned to their home villages because of the shame.

cat-o-nine lashes

Former St. Andrew Councillor Emerson Barrett wanted the cat-o-nine lashing to continue and in addition rapists should be locked up in prison and only released when they could not even want to rape a lizard.

Former Councillor Basil Keane had no compunctions where the punishment for rapists was concerned. He wanted their penises amputated, leaving only a half-an-inch stubble to remind them of the joys they once had.

He was a dental surgeon and I am sure he would have given up his practice to take up the duties of official castrator.