[[*---Virtu contro al Furore---*]]

Wednesday, October 27, 2004

______________________________

Hmm in response to kal's 26 oct entry (no i am not taking shiv's stance... i'll see how once he responds)

"The cause of crime cannot be the economy when one’s economic standing doesn’t affect crime."
Au contraire. Economic standing does affect crime. Why do you think that the recent cocaine bust created an enormous stir amongst society, more so than the regular drug busts at the causeway, even though much less cocaine was recovered than in many of the attempts to smuggle huge amounts of heroin through the causeway? It's simply because the people who abused the drugs in this case were high-standing members of society. Therefore, isn't this the exception rather than the norm? Rather, most of the time, drug abusers (especially those featured in the news) languor around in some dank apartments, junking away their lives. Are any of these common drug abuse busts members of high society? Naturally, the most recent cocaine bust was a more isolated (though not singular) example. On another note, it is statistically proven that the poor are more likely to commit crimes, simply because of their low social standings. Though i do concede that certain crimes are universal across the board - but generally economic standing does affect crime rate.

"The duty of the government is to act on your behalf for your sake, as it has the responsibility to ensure you don’t harm yourself. This is precisely why the government is there. "

But how far can the government infringe on your liberty? If it does have the responsibility to ensure that you don't harm yourself, does it then have the rights to check your private thoughts and contain depressed individuals so that they don't commit suicide? In that sense, yes, we do punish the drug traffickers because they are causing other people to harm themselves. But how far can we punish people who are willing to harm themselves? Do we see people getting hauled off the streets or out of school for wanton self-mutilation? Of course we don't. Isn't that then a fallacy of the justice system? Shouldn't we punish people who mutilate themselves, because they are causing harm to themselves? And if we don't, how do we then extend the ideal of protecting you from yourself to taking drugs?

"Again, what was proposed were talks and counseling for people who show a high potential for such violent crimes in the future, such that the beneficial effect of this counseling has the ability to take effect before the harm is done."

However, what is important is that the potential cannot really be accurately judged. Also, didn't you mention later in the same entry that you direct all than you can to solve the problem. Still, realize that the aftereffects of Columbine were effected only after a precedent was set. By this logic, if no precedent is set for a type of crime, how will we accurately judge the potential of people to commit crimes? According to your logic, shoudn't we give all poor people who do not receive good education counseling because they are likely to commit monetary-based crimes on the basis of their economic standing?

What i do agree with Kal on is that some form of pre-emption is necessary. We need to ensure potential threats to society can be dealt with to some extent before they can cause harm. What i just do not get is how one would accurately judge that potential to cause harm to people. I listen to Marilyn Manson. Does that put me at high risk to commit a crime?

"Though I agree that the majority of gang related crimes are between gangs, it is worth noting that unrelated and innocent people who unfortunately are in the wrong place at the wrong time are also victims of gang violence, through drive by shootings, hostage taking, and random acts of violence."

Drive by shootings do actually take place often with a motive. Do gangs run by and start randomly shooting people? The problem is, gangs only attack people with a motive. Yes, it is true that "messing" with a gang does not correlate that the gang has any right to attack the person. However, do we not often lessen a crime because it was provoked? That is why there are such things as culpable homicide not amounting to murder, because of provocation. While "messing" with a gang doesn't give them any rights to attack you back, it absolves them of some part of the crime when they do finally get their back. Finally. What happens when people see a gang fight? Yup. They run. The only reason why absolute innocents should be involved in gang affairs is if they really are quite stupid or unreactive. Otherwise, they should be able to see the trouble coming, and take due flight actions. Besides, according to your logic, gang members aren't innocent anymore, so if gang member a goes and hacks up gang member b on a bus, both of them are at fault right?

"Please, prove that it can be micromanaged, and prove that it can return successes before you assert anything."

Anything on such a small scale as singapore can be micromanaged. Look at the ISD which managed to catch terrorists before they committed a terror act. To date, not a single terror act has occurred in singapore. Things such as corruption are virtually non-existent because the CPIB is constantly breathing down everybody's neck. Things like that do prove that, whether of not expansion results in a drop in efficiency, miniaturization does result in increased efficiency.

"Also, I don’t see how rehabilitation and restitution are going to work because the media controls public opinion, or because people or stupid, or because of whatever you said."

Quite simply, if we can all agree on this point that the media controls public opinion, then if we do in fact modify what comes out of the media, then we can modify what the people think. Once again, you have to remember in the Singaporean context, the government does to a large extent control the media - remember that SPH is liased with the singaporean government, so the government can cover up statistics and present a nice and pretty picture to the people. One also has to remember, it is precisely because a lot of these criminals cannot re-integrate into society, that they then go on to commit more crimes because they cannot go back to a normal way of life in society. Let's face facts - we saw in that criminal video on tuesday (well kal you didn't see it but nevermind) that, a major flaw with the whole idea of restitution is that employers do not employ people with a past criminal record, even if they are really willing to reform. Let's look at it seriously; it's a vicious cycle. Employers do not think that criminals are willing to reform, so they do not hire them. From there, unemployment with regards to ex-offenders increases and thus, as we have established, crime rates rise. Thus many of these ex-offenders go on to commit more crimes, which reinstates the idea that criminals will go on to commit more crimes in the employers' minds.

One really has to do something about all those negative statistics in order to change the public perception of the whole idea that many criminals will go on to commit more crimes - that idea is one of the precise reasons why the criminals themselves do in fact go on to commit more crimes. Thus the government in this case has to make the media wash the whole issue over, to whitewash the whole issue, in order for societal perceptions to alter - remember that the ends do justify the means, so sometimes we have to do something that is wrong (such as hiding the truth) in order to get a righteous aim (allowing criminals to be reinstated properly and removing social stigma) accomplished.

More importantly, if restitution is indeed a fundamental tenet of the justice system, isn't it the responsibility of the system to ensure that such individuals are properly re-integrated into mainstream society? By extension, it is the duty, to an extent, of the justice system and the government which controls it, to change societal mindsets so that said criminals can be restituted? After all, it would be safe to say that the government does not enjoy locking people up in jail (on a utilitarian standpoint, it presents a drain on the country's economic resources, as criminals cannot work and contribute to the economy, and instead provide a resource drain as they have to be fed and accomodated in prisons), and thus it would also be in the government's best interests to ensure that criminals can become well-meaning, contributing members of society.

"It is not at the expense of the cause. If the cause takes a long time to resolve, or is even unable to be resolved, do you not treat the symptoms?"

I fully agree with kal on this - look above for my view on the resolving of the cause. So shiv, one must first treat the symptoms, by locking the prisoners away for some extended period of time, before one can effect the treatment to the root problem. With the solution detailed above, it is just as well because society will need time to adjust their mindsets, to be accomodating to prisoners, and we cannot have any re-offenders committing crimes to negate this carefully-built mindset. So yes, do lock them away for a while, until it is ascertained that most of society has indeed accepted the new mindset, that criminals are willing to reform and re-integrate.

On a small note of contention though, considering the large number of repeat offenders in this present day and age, woudn't it be rather economically unsound to lock away prisoners for life after 3 offenses, especially since many of these offenders might still be in their 20s? Still, i suppose to re-inforce the mindset that offenders have resolved, we DO seal away those unresolved - no point changing societal mindsets when a few hardcore black sheep will just go and ruin it all again anyway.

Comments Please.

[[ Sagacious Musings ]]*|11:38 AM|

Comments: Post a Comment