DPP: Tougher sanctions needed for hoaxers during disasters
Published:Friday | April 24, 2020 | 12:00 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn believes that several laws, including the Disaster Risk Management Act and the Cybercrime Act, should be amended, allowing for harsher penalties when persons use technology to create public mischief.
Llewellyn was speaking in the wake of last month’s arrest of 37-year-old Westmoreland resident Zavian Patterson, the alleged mastermind behind a viral hoax voice note claiming the parish was being placed under lockdown due to COVID-19.
She said that such actions could cause serious harm or unnecessary panic, which could trigger stampedes, for example, and required special sanctions.
“In the same way that the authorities may have to amend or overhaul some of the old laws, like the Quarantine Act, based on what they’ve found in terms of implementation now that we are having this pandemic, I think the Disaster Risk Management Act and the cybercrime legislation could be amended to meet that sort of offence or activity, which would be very injurious to the public interest in the context of a pandemic,” said Llewellyn.
“Creation of public mischief is an old common-law offence, so enhanced sanctions could be contemplated by amending these acts to make sure that, where the Internet is used in such a way to cause panic in the context of a pandemic, the sanctions are enhanced and the different ways of pursuing or perpetrating those activities could be properly captured under law,” added Llewellyn.
According to the DPP, hoaxes could also result in violent attacks on citizens against whom false claims are made.
“So many things can happen based on a voice note seeking to cause alarm and spread misinformation,” she said. “ ... It might be better to just have a whole new area under the Disaster Risk Management Act to deal with that element.”
The COVID-19 pandemic, which began in China last year, has been responsible for six deaths in Jamaica and more than 250 cases. Globally, it has caused nearly 200,000 deaths.