Page 46 - Magistrates Conference 2019

Prevalence of the Offence

For Discussion:

• In many larger jurisdictions, especially in those which have organisations/departments and

advisory non-judicial sentencing bodies, responsible for data collection, the taking of
judicial notice of the prevalence factor may simply not be viable.

• However, in very small Caribbean jurisdictions, the sentencing judge, as a member of the

community, is expected to have a good sense of which offences are prevalent ones and

which are not.

• In addition, insisting on statistics might only place an onerous burden on the prosecution

authorities which in most jurisdictions, already tend to be overburdened.

• Perhaps, for less frequently prosecuted offences (for example, money laundering, some
types of fraud, corruption and possession of child pornography) submissions can be invited

from counsel and the option is open for the prosecution to adduce statistical evidence in

these less common types of prosecutions.

• Otherwise, there appears to be no principled objection to a judge in a small jurisdiction
taking judicial notice of the prevalence of many types of frequently prosecuted offences.

10