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The President of the Beausejour Community Group, Jim Joseph, has spoken out regarding reports that Gros Islet residents beat up a man accused of breaking into a house in their community.
The incident occurred on Wednesday morning, June 21, 2023.
Social media videos of an injured man on the ground with a woman off-camera telling others not to hit him again went viral.
The President of the Beausejour Community Group in Gros Islet told St. Lucia Times he believed the incident was isolated and did not constitute a trend.
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“I am not pro ‘vigilante justice’ because I believe that we should all allow due process, which is in place to deal with those things,” Jim Joseph told St. Lucia Times.
But he explained that whenever there is a failure in the due process chain, there is a need to identify and address the shortcoming.
In addition, Joseph spoke of the need to understand the chain of events that would lead an aggrieved individual to mete out ‘justice’.
However, he explained that justice pertains to fairness, equity, understanding the circumstances, and providing penalties commensurate with a crime.
“So I do not think that justice should be the right word in this incident,” the Beausejour Community Group President stated.
“What are the supporting or enabling factors that are there or not there to cause somebody to do what they did in the first place? Is there a support system for that particular person who would resort to that,” he stated regarding the home invasion suspect.
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“Is there a psychological problem, or are there psycho-social problems? You want to know how you could solve the problem and how it would not reoccur,” Joseph explained.
“We have to look at this from a broader context. We cannot look at it from the perspective that the justice system has failed or the community is frustrated,” the Beausejour Community Group President told St. Lucia Times.
“We have to look at it from a broader perspective to see where all of us are falling short ,” Joseph declared.
Headline photo: Injured suspect being led away by the police.
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