Old crime plan, pretty package
CRIME AND violence continues to be of great concern to us as citizens of our nation. Many citizens, groups and both the prime minister and the opposition leader have mentioned it as a priority matter to be tackled in 2014.
The fact is, crime has been a worsening problem for the past 25 years because of real, tangible, root reasons and causes. We saw a temporary ease a couple years ago, which I had predicted would not last!
I wish I could share the optimism of some and the hope of all, including the police, who are charged with direct responsibility. However, real faith that gives hope is based on sound principles of truth. So I must pour cold water on the hope of our leaders and police for reduction in crime. We will not and cannot hope for reduction in the present scenario. Why? Because the strategies being used can never produce the desired results!
A slight variation to a song by Dusty Springfield eloquently defines our crime-solving approach for the past 25 years. This is a brand-new coat and my brand-new shoes, but I was the same old me with the same old blues. We have dressed the same failed diagnosis and strategies in different ‘garb’ under different names, yet with no improvement.
Misdirected legislation, oppressive annihilation of perceived crime leaders, harassment of poor communities, more personnel and money and more political rhetoric with little political will and acceptance of the real problem.
These approaches cannot fix our problem for they attack the fruit, not the root, of our crime problem.
If the philosophical principle applied to crime fighting is flawed, the resulting praxis will be wrong, wrong, wrong! Our crime treatment year after year, government after government, has been naturally flawed because our diagnosis and underlying philosophies have been flawed! So rather than improve the problem, we have multiplied it.
Successive governments have not belled this cat. Some are afraid of the bell and so won’t use it. Others hold on to the bell and so won’t use it, ‘so puss rule and rat a feel it’. We have a dilemma.
We need new personnel at all leadership levels (political and administrative), or new and different thinking from our current personnel, to drive new and different philosophies to support new and different crime-prevention and suppression strategies!
Our problem is not really a crime problem, it is an injustice problem. All crimes are an injustice done to someone. The direction towards the solution must be applying more of the equal and opposite force to overcome it.
FAST-MOVING TARGET
It is difficult to fight crime; it is many faceted and a fast-moving target hard to hit. Crime is an injustice done. Fight the stationary target of injustice. Deal with the root and you affect the fruit. Teach justice; give justice to all and we will reduce crime, the fruit of injustice. If no injustice is received or perpetrated, no crime can be committed.
Make and enforce laws that are clear, swift and certain. We must ensure that punishment fits the crime. If it is greater, as in aspects of the US system, you feed the problem.
Deal with the contributors to crime, which some erroneously call causes such as poverty, poor education, unemployment, among others. These are justice issues that produce injustice, which results in crime.
May our leaders ask for help and be willing to accept it!