In October, it was reported that the murder rate in...

In October, it was reported that the murder rate in this southern Caribbean nation of 1.3 million appears to have been largely unaffected by the hanging of Dole Chadee and 8 of his henchmen over a 4-day period in early June. Police Superintendent Winston Cooper, head of the Police Community Department, said based on recent killings - 7 in each of July, August and September - the executions did not have any impact. "Murders continue to take place in the different environments and given individual circumstances, and the hangings seem not to have had any impact on the people who carried out the murders," Cooper said in an interview. Last year, police recorded a total of 97 murders, an average of about 8 per month. Death penalty abolitionist Ishmael Samad said whatever impact the executions had on the country, particularly the criminal element, it faded as the weeks passed. "It's based on a false idea that the death penalty will cause an impact on the crime scene. In the long run it doesn't," said Samad, who supports life imprisonment without parole for murderers.