What do confetti at weddings, clowns at circuses, promises during election campaigns, and suspended sentences in Malta, have in common?

I know, I know... our prison is full to the brim; it’s over populated; it’s grossly under staffed; it’s a drug haven, and a criminal boot-camp.
But, suspended sentences are essentially a legal delay that gives convicted felons the chance not to serve their jail sentences.  Ultimately it means that a guilty convict could very well get away with serving absolutely no time behind bars.

Don’t get me wrong, when it comes to petty or victimless crimes, I’m usually against prison sentences anyway, but now it seems that we’re not sending people to prison because of the mere housing issue.

A suspended sentence is like a period of probation, also similar to a conditional discharge. After being found guilty, and given a jail sentence, defendants are not sent to prison unless they break the law again during the operative period of their suspended sentence.

If they break the law, the jail sentence comes into effect, but if a defendant does not break the law during that prescribed period, then the jail sentence is forgiven and forgotten forever.

So, if for example a Judge metes out a jail term of 18 months suspended by four years, if the defendant commits a crime within the next four years, and is found guilty, then they will serve 18 months behind bars for the first crime, and whatever the second crime carries with it. But if they don’t commit a crime, or if they are not found guilty within those first four years, then essentially their 18 month sentence is thrown out forever.

In principle, a suspended sentence is supposed to act as a sword of Damocles hanging over a felon’s head. It is suppose to be an incentive to keep convicted criminals away from trouble and to reduce recidivism rates. And when it is used as a metaphorical slap on the wrist, like for skinny dipping or drunken nuisances, I totally get it, but lately, suspended sentences seem to be the order of the day. They are being meted out not only for petty crimes and silly misdemeanours, but also to punish those who prey on the most vulnerable.

Here’s a selection from this month’s healthy serving of suspended sentences. Some of the cases are so petty that the defendant shouldn’t even have been charged in the first place thus saving some of the court’s valuable time. In other cases however, the meting out of suspended sentences is as useful as suspenders on a legless woman.

Yesterday Nizar Mustafa Al-Gadi was remanded in custody accused of his former partner’s murder – the alleged crime was committed during the operative period of a suspended sentence.  Dr Margaret Mifsud, a 31 year old lawyer, had been found dead in her car, on April 18. Three weeks before, on March 24, she had gone to the Birkirkara police station with her two children claiming that Nizar Mustafa Al-Gadi, the Libyan father of her two girls, had tried to strangle her with a white string.

Last week a man who locked his girlfriend in a room for two or three days (depending on which news report you read) with no food, drink or access to a toilet was given a jail term of 18 months suspended by three years.  He was also been ordered to take an anger management course.

An appeals’ court changed a two-and-a-half year jail term to a suspended sentence after Joseph Portelli, 50, of Qawra was found guilty of circulating false dollars to the detriment of Thomas Cook Exchange Bureau in 1999.
 
Earlier this month, Denes Csepreghy,  a 27-year-old chef who lives in St Julian’s was jailed for one year suspended for three after he admitted to being so drunk that he could not find his house caused a nuisance to his neighbours and also punched a police sergeant.
 
A former policewoman, Charlene-Carm Simpson, 28 of Rabat, was condemned to a six-month suspended jail sentence after admitting to shop-lifting, a crime she was duty-bound to prevent.
 
Rosette Borg, a 34-year-old woman from Gzira was jailed four months suspended for a year after she pleaded guilty to, using foul language in public, ringing doorbells, slightly injuring, resisting, and threatening a police officer.

A seven-month pregnant Somali woman aged 26, was given a six-month jail sentence suspended for three years after admitting to escaping from Malta without the necessary documentation two years ago.

A 27-year-old, living in Hamrun, was given a two-year jail term suspended for four years after having been found guilty of seriously injuring another man and threatening him with a steel pipe in an establishment in Luqa.