DEAR EDITOR: I am deeply concerned about the recently passed legislation denying bail to persons accused of kidnapping and the chorus of praise for the action.

I see this as a “knee jerk” reaction to the crime situation that lacks analysis and abandons principle. It is also a perpetuation of the culture of violence, so aligned to the culture of death condemned by our late Holy Father.

Years ago some of us warned that arming the police would now escalate the use of firearms in the country and we have been proven right by subsequent events. Violence breeds violence and the reaction to this new act of violence by the state will be countered by violence.

“A person is assumed innocent until proven guilty”. “It is better that a guilty person goes free that an innocent person be punished for a crime.” These are two pillars of our justice system and we see these principles being abrogated here.

The incidence of persons on bail committing more crimes is a product of the inefficiency of our system where it takes months and sometimes years for cases to be determined and this is what should be corrected to solve that problem.

When we go down the road of the erosion of human rights we take society back towards the dark ages and produce a more brutish society.

Surely modern technology (check the Martha Stewart affair in the USA ) puts in our hands more efficient ways of monitoring the whereabouts of people and indicates that other than increasing the number of people who have to be incarcerated awaiting trial we could be systematically moving to reduce it.

I hope that the Church and especially its leaders, both clergy and laity, continually, condemn measures that further carry the society into the culture of violence and death and promote and support measures that will give people, and especially the poor, life and in more abundance materially, ethically and spiritually.

Hollis Eversley, San Fernando