JAMAICA – Government Senator and consultant psychiatrist Dr Saphire Longmore on Friday doubled down on her call for Jamaica to enforce its death penalty law, particularly for child killers, irrespective of age or gender, arguing that even if individuals are not executed, a message will still be sent. Longmore had faced some criticism for making that pitch in early December ahead of the sentencing of dental assistant Kayodi Satchell who, in June 2023, snatched eight-year-old Danielle Rowe from her Braeton Primary and Infant School in Portmore, St Catherine, before taking her to a location in St Andrew where she slashed the child’s throat. On Friday, in making her contribution to the State of the Nation Debate at Gordon House in downtown Kingston, Longmore, stating that she wanted to explain further, said, “I needed to clarify that my position is not because of my ignorance of capital versus non-capital murder or of death penalty not being gender-specific. In my mind, if you kill a child [whether you are] man or woman, you should get the death penalty, even if we are not enforcing it.” Under Jamaica’s Offences Against the Person Act, the punishment for capital murder is the death penalty. There is, however, one exception as the Act specifically exempts from execution women who are convicted of offences punishable with death, but who are found by a jury to be pregnant. (Jamaicaobserver)