Delivering Justice...When?

Chalk one more up on the criminals’ side of the scoreboard. What? What do you mean you’ve run out of space? But the cops say crime has dropped. Ha! This, my children, is a joke. Do you think the family of Angel and Marco Tulio Xis think that crime is declining? Hell, no. The fact is, justice has been denied to crime victims too many times in too many ways, and the system sleeps on. In fact, picture the entire justice system snoozing in a row of hammocks on a long, shaded, breezy verandah. Because the judges, the prosecutors, the police and all the others involved in delivering justice can’t possibly be awake to our realities.

Okay, kudos to the cops for catching those young monsters who killed the Hills for a few trinkets and a vehicle. But seriously, how many people think like I do, that it’ll be a miracle if these boys end up being found guilty at all? And of course, we know they’ll never, ever hang. Saddest of all, when they get away with it, everyone in the justice system will blame everyone else for the failure, and no one will actually fix it.

I admit, I don’t have the magic bullet solution for the crime problem. I don’t think anyone does if they’re honest about it. I do know that this country’s too small to have this big of a problem, which automatically means that somebody’s not dealing with it as they should.

These days, most cases don’t make it to trial thanks to witness tampering; this needs to be seriously addressed, through punitive measures and by providing protection if required. For those criminals who actually do land up in prison, please, PLEASE put them to do hard labour. The idea is to make sure they don’t ever want to come back to prison, and you can make them think twice about it without treating them like animals. Certainly it cannot be achieved by allowing them to live in relative comfort, playing with computers all day, until it’s time to have a weekend out with the girlfriend –what innocent child ever viewed this as a deterrent?

Incidentally, Honourable Ministers, you need to get to work rectifying that CCJ mess. No, we’re not so naïve as to think that the CCJ will automatically let us hang brutal killers with ease, but at least when their lawyers take us to the highest of mortal courts, that court won’t be the painfully expensive Privy Council.

The fact is, we live in an increasingly dangerous society, which is unhealthy culturally, societally and economically. Any politician worth his votes ought to be seriously, actively, loudly addressing it, as should the citizenry. By the way, did you think that ‘not seeing’ a crime will make it go away? When you’re tempted to play ostrich, ask yourself how you would feel if something happened to you or yours and witnesses refused to speak up. Shouldn’t victims have rights?