It takes a lot to move the Government these days. As I write this post, there are huge protests taking place all over India on the Government to move to punish few who gang raped a young girl. The protest is disconcerting as it shows the state of lack of security for women in India's Capital City. The protesters are asking for death sentence for rapists.
Back in the 17th Century, Britain had 220 crimes for which the penalty was death. These included stealing of property like horse or for felling trees, etc. Later this was reduced to deportation and hard core criminals were deported to Australia. The crimes that some of these people who were deported committed were stealing a loaf of bread or stealing a horse. By today's standards, these are hardly crimes but in the 18th and 19th Centuries, these were major crimes. As a society, we have softened our stance on punishment. Some countries have done away with Capital Punishment. Given the increase in economic disparities, crime is bound to increase. We will see more and more of it as the days go by. So, we must be looking at punishment carefully. If we are too lenient, we will not be able to control crime.
We have also brought in laws like child abuse, etc. that puts pressure on parents and school teachers. They don't know how to mete out punishment to unruly children. Parents who take their children to task are now punished by some countries' legal system as abusing their children. So, what can parents or school teachers do when their wards are misbehaving...just grin and bear them? This is what the old adage called - "Sparing the rod and spoiling the child". These countries that put undue pressure on parents and school teachers do not mind spending millions of dollars protecting their citizens from these same children who were spared the punishment when young and turn out to be criminals later on in life. I have seen very few parents who do not want the best for their children. If this is correct, they do have the right to take corrective action when their children are misbehaving.
Given all this and the progressive softening of stance on crime in terms of punishment, crime rates are on the increase. From petty theft to rape to terrorism, we keep hearing of crimes every day. Recently, there was a report that New York had not recorded a violent crime for a period of 36 hours and that was the first time in many years this had happened. This is an absolute shame on all of us that a city goes through a day without a stabbing or a shooting or a murder and we call it a violent crime free day. If we continue this path, I am not sure what we will leave behind as a society for our future generations. I can foresee our future generation celebrating an hour or a minute without a crime sometime in the future.
So, what should we do as a society? I believe that every crime should have a consequence and that consequence should act as a significant deterrent. Further, the justice system should be fair i.e. implementation of the laws of the land should be ruthlessly followed and punishment meted out in time. Parents must be given leeway to handle children in a way that makes them (children) understand what it is to live in a society and so unruly children should be managed by them without the State interfering in these actions. There will always be few exceptional cases...but, we cannot have our laws based on these exceptions. Most importantly, governments of the day must focus on equitable growth or what we now call as Inclusive Growth so that economic disparities are reduced significantly. This will help reduce crime to a large extent. I believe that it is better to earn slightly lower salaries due to a more equitable form of wealth distribution than to pay higher taxes so that Governments can manage crime and criminals better.
Crime will be reduced only if there are deterrents and these are implemented ruthlessly by the Governments of the land. If we have laws, they need to be obeyed. I watched few movies on this and I was really shocked at the messages coming out of these movies. These clearly are a reflection of the frustrations in the societies that we live in.
We talk of how people behave like animals, the laws of the jungle where only might is right, etc. I do believe that animals behave much better than us. Human beings are the most dangerous species in this world. We kill for pleasure, for storing food for the next few years, for wont, for greed, for any reason that you can think of in this world...animals kill only when they are hungry or if their existence is at risk. Looks like we will be a better lot if we behaved like animals.
Let us not jeopardize the lives of our future generations and leave behind a society that we would feel ashamed of. Worse, if you believe in re-incarnation...because you will be part of the future generation :).
So, what should we do as a society? I believe that every crime should have a consequence and that consequence should act as a significant deterrent. Further, the justice system should be fair i.e. implementation of the laws of the land should be ruthlessly followed and punishment meted out in time. Parents must be given leeway to handle children in a way that makes them (children) understand what it is to live in a society and so unruly children should be managed by them without the State interfering in these actions. There will always be few exceptional cases...but, we cannot have our laws based on these exceptions. Most importantly, governments of the day must focus on equitable growth or what we now call as Inclusive Growth so that economic disparities are reduced significantly. This will help reduce crime to a large extent. I believe that it is better to earn slightly lower salaries due to a more equitable form of wealth distribution than to pay higher taxes so that Governments can manage crime and criminals better.
Crime will be reduced only if there are deterrents and these are implemented ruthlessly by the Governments of the land. If we have laws, they need to be obeyed. I watched few movies on this and I was really shocked at the messages coming out of these movies. These clearly are a reflection of the frustrations in the societies that we live in.
We talk of how people behave like animals, the laws of the jungle where only might is right, etc. I do believe that animals behave much better than us. Human beings are the most dangerous species in this world. We kill for pleasure, for storing food for the next few years, for wont, for greed, for any reason that you can think of in this world...animals kill only when they are hungry or if their existence is at risk. Looks like we will be a better lot if we behaved like animals.
Let us not jeopardize the lives of our future generations and leave behind a society that we would feel ashamed of. Worse, if you believe in re-incarnation...because you will be part of the future generation :).
Thank You for this article. I would attribute more to the upbringing of every individual in the society, contributing to such heinous crimes. If Parents stand as role models for their children in the right sense, there is no way crimes will increase. Sad thing is there are many such incidents happening in darkness like the recent Delhi Episode.
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