Engage the criminals
published: Wednesday | September 3, 2003
Delroy Chuck
THE ONGOING fight against crime has been a losing encounter. The criminals seem to have the upper hand and our society is no safer now than five, ten or twenty years ago. In spite of the best efforts of the security forces, new crime plans, extra-judicial execution of dons and gunmen, stringent measures, legislative enactments, etc., the battle to destroy the criminal elements and to control crime has been a failure. In truth, the present approach to deal with criminality is a lost cause and it is time to change course, adopt a new mindset and, instead of fighting the criminals, engage and neutralise them, which means a more intelligent effort is needed.
Listen to the public relations exercise and foremost in the message in the fight against crime, the underlying theme is that the criminals are the enemies and society must summon the will, the determination and force to overcome and destroy them before they destroy us. Nothing is different now than 250 years ago. The criminal is not one of us, he is the enemy; it is the mentality of we against them. The criminal is seen as a different creature, some atavistic animal, a human being who is physically, if not mentally, deformed and who cannot be tamed and, therefore, must be shunted out of our society's way of life. The approach now, as one hundred years ago, is not to use more intelligence but to use force, and even greater force, to demonstrate to the criminal elements that brute force must be met with brute force.
BRUTISH STUPIDITY
Well, brutish stupidity has been one of the features of criminality, as it has been of law enforcement over the centuries. Anyone who has studied criminology and penology will easily recognise that our present approaches to deal with crimes and criminals have remained virtually the same, as 200 years ago. The same passion, the same hatred and the same brutality are directed to those who breach society's laws. Criminals must be hated, harshly punished and ostracised. We are to despise the criminals, instead of their crimes. We do not embrace the opportunity for repentance and the Christian virtue of forgiveness. The criminals are society's enemies, on whom we wage war; but can they ever be challenged, and changed, to become society's friends?
To be sure, it is difficult not to hate the criminals and to see them as heartless animals. When young men, especially, take up guns, beat up, rape, rob, and murder helpless householders then how can anyone have any feeling but hatred, revulsion and vitriolic passion for them? The emotional response and desire for revenge, vindication and reprisal are not easily cooled. Criminal offenders, undoubtedly, must be punished and the strong, emphatic, message must be conveyed that criminal behaviour cannot be tolerated. Yet, in our law enforcement, are we attempting to wipe out the criminals or to eliminate criminal behaviour?
SEEING THE DIFFERENCE
Regrettably, far too many people do not see a difference. They believe that criminals are somehow different from ordinary people, with a propensity for criminal conduct, and unable to live a straight and honest life. Well, I have visited many prisons in the UK, North America and the Caribbean and, I daresay, the convicted criminals that I have met have similar desires, physique and intellect to people I meet in the best universities, parliaments, boardrooms or finest homes. In fact, in terms of intellect and physique, studies have shown that the prison population is a fair sample of a country's population.
Criminals are not the enemy they are one of us. Why some men go along a certain, wrongful, path instead of what society deems fit, natural and right, is not easily understood and explained. Yet, if we visit the squalor, filth and degradation of some of the inner cities, the real issue must be how come we don't have more crimes? People living in the inner cities cannot feel they are part and parcel of the society, stakeholders in the nation's future, upholders of the national interests, when they are treated as forgotten denizens of our solid achievements and progress. How many see the inner cities, or their homes there, as fit and proper places to spend the rest of their lives, or somewhere for their children to grow and inherit? Sadly, it is mainly from these communities that the rampaging gangs, unstoppable gunmen and street corner druggists emerge. For them, the gang offers the alternative to acquire power, status, respect, and even hope of a better life.
The criminals in our midst are mainly young men between the ages of 15 to 27, unemployed, unmarried, mainly uneducated, and virtually untouchables. They are seen as society's enemies but what has society done to embrace, tame and befriend them? The present, unwritten, policy is to destroy them, and if a few innocent ones get killed then it is all for the greater good! Indeed, since they are easily identifiable, lock them up in preventive detention, until when? When another set comes around?
The gangs in our midst cannot be dismantled and destroyed by brute force, state violence and execution, which oftentimes provide the stimulus for even more deadly and violent responses. The proper approach may well be to find ways and means to engage and involve society's wrongdoers and potential wrongdoers to feel and become a part of the community interests, stakeholders and beneficiaries in its development, losers when things go wrong and winners when the community is at peace and in harmony, instead of seeing them as society's enemies. To that discussion, I will continue, next week.
Delroy Chuck is an attorney-at-law and Opposition Member of Parliament. He can be contacted by e-mail at delchuck@hotmail.com.
