Crime & Contemplation

Crime and punishment. 

This concept is also known as criminal justice and deals with how fairness, legality and morality affect law and order. 

The term criminal justice can sometimes refer to the industry that surrounds crime and punishment - and make no mistake, it is an industry. 

 

Some of the many careers in the field are covered on this criminal justice degree site, along with information on educational requirements for those working in this field. I am more concerned with the idea of criminal justice as a social issue. 

People seem to think that it is socially acceptable that the punishment for a particular crime, should fit the crime. All too often we find ourselves asking - does it?

This past week I have been contemplating crime... that is, the concept of crime & punishment.

 

People seem to think that punishment and the concept of consequence provides a framework of limitations which go beyond just saying "don't".  Punishment implies the "or else..." and waves a nobbly finger in the air. I sometimes wonder which part of the anatomy suggests that consequences be damned and that justice and safety are discount items...

Some are so quick to demand the death penalty for a certain sort of crime, often without seriously considering the application, implications and consequences of all of the above. Right at the top of my list of concerns is the death penalty - which many people view as a necessity - which they also claim is some form of deterrent - a "magic bullet" if you will, against crime. Hang, gas, inject or fry a few people, and pretty soon, would-be criminals will be too frightened to get caught to risk it... or so that tired, worn-out old theory goes. But we all know that reality is completely different, don't we? Especially here in sunny South Africa.

Firstly, in my humble opinion, we have a justice system that is so woefully inept, corrupt and flawed that it would be more appropriate to rename it the Department of Injustice. 

 

Case dockets disappear, crucial evidence mysteriously vanishes (along with the occasional witness), and police officials themselves very often switch sides and occasionally find out what the world looks like from the other side of those bars... Often now, we hear about people having been victimized and wrongfully arrested by police - and sometimes even imprisoned wrongfully - and we all know how nice it is in South African prisons - and to say nothing of the period spent awaiting trial... which in itself can be a sentence, and for some, a death sentence. 

Then there is the complete lack of segregation among prisoners. Now hold on a minute, I said segregation - but I never said anything about races here. I'm talking about separating the novices from the hardened career cases.What I'm getting at is this: You have convict A and convict B. 

 

Convict A is a hardened career criminal, a 40 year old violent thug who started out with assault, robbery, drug dealing, auto-theft, house-breaking, and recently graduated to aggravated assault and armed robbery - and will probably graduate to rape and murder the next time he gets out on parole (and sadly, he will). 

 

Convict B is 22 years old, and is a first-time offender for what is laughably called "white-collar crime", doing a 2 year stretch for - shall we say, creative accounting? 

 

Now we come to the point: Is it appropriate to place convict B in a cell with 20 other convicts very similar to convict A? How long do you think convict B will last? Five minutes?

Or are you one of those optimistic enough to think that at the end of his 2 years, convict B will have whipped all his cell-mates into shape and have them all reading or even studying in their oodles of free time? Or will the reality shock you when you see convict B at the end of his term - emaciated, HIV positive, and a shivering mess? 

 

I always believed that the punishment should fit the crime, folks - and I'm sorry, but people shouldn't go to jail for minor or less serious offenses - to die, or to suffer a living death for it. If people are sent to jail then that should be the extent of it - they should not be further abused or even raped by fellow inmates and damaged still further.

There is the additional feature that names jails as education centers for criminals. Criminals go in inexperienced novices - and if they come out at all, they come out more with extra criminal skills, because they have learned from the more hardened criminals how to be better at what they do. Of course, the ideal would be to separate not just the different categories of convict, but rather to keep them in small groups of similar cases, so that none of these things happen.

Ironic, I think, if you consider that when the new dispensation took office in 1994, South Africa had just as many woes regarding overcrowding in our prisons... and up to this day, nearly 20 years later, the government has not built any new facilities to house prisoners, and has instead closed down quite a few facilities - while complaining that prisons are so overcrowded. 

 

Yet there is always more tax money to blow into the air to celebrate non-events such as the centenary of the ANC... funny, I would think that money would be better spent on the foundering RDP housing scheme - and I do mean scheme, don't I?  I often wonder how that gets paid for, and by whom? And why? After all, nobody ever gave my family - or any of my friends families - a house for nothing just because of the color of our skins... No sir - they all had to work for that, and pay 15 or 25 years on that thing called a home loan... and they still do. Still, the RDP houses have a reputation for being poorly built, and even for sometimes falling down, that one can easily feel sorry for those poor people - even after the keys are handed over to them. 

Then we come to duration of sentences. If the average human can today expect a lifespan of 80-plus years, how in any way, shape or form is 25 years to be seriously considered a "life sentence" for murder?

In my book, the ONLY appropriate sentence for murder is life imprisonment - which means until the fucker stops breathing and no longer has a pulse. Period. 

 

Seeing some countries - including THIS one - doling out 15 and 25 year sentences for the taking of another life - often violently, brutally and hatefully - and calling it "justice" sickens me and I find it offensive.

How does rehabilitation apply in such a case? The victim(s) are still dead. They don't get out on parole for good behavior, or because they've studied in prison, or because they've found a god or two hiding under the couch cushions, or started caring for songbirds in their cells - or whatever BS they use to wangle their ways out of the consequences of their actions.

I don't agree with the death penalty. Even as much as I may feel a murderer or rapist deserves to die in  a gas chamber of at the end of a rope for their crimes. 

 

As long as there is a risk of corruption and tainted evidence (and let's face it, in South Africa that is a DISTINCT possibility) an innocent person could go to jail. If it can happen in a country in Europe, or in the USA, whose judicial systems are mostly effective and intact, there's no reason at all why it couldn't happen here in South Africa where everything has been falling apart for years. As long as those convicted are still alive, there is a possibility that the truth may yet come to light. Killing someone for killing someone else isn't justice as much as vengeance - and in the wrong hands, a death sentence is a weapon of fear and intimidation - imagine who an unjust government would execute - look at Iran, look at the old South Africa? What do you think a corrupt government as we have would DO with that kind of power? The thought is a chilling one, and no mistake.

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If you would like to know more about Christina Engela and her writing, please feel free to browse her website.

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All material copyright © Christina Engela, 2019.

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