Imagine a scenario where you have murdered someone without ever believing you could, or without ever wanting to. Nevertheless, you have done it. You have done it and by some lucky chance, nobody knows. Or at least, those who do are too chicken to say so. What do you do? Who are you?
South Africa, like many other countries is home to a wide variety of criminals. Jails are teeming with too many prisoners, despite possibly too regular presidential pardons. There is simply not enough space to house criminals in our local prisons and simply not enough things to do to keep idle hands from picking up guns, knives and other people’s property.
When thinking about a criminal, I wonder who most people picture. Are they raced? Are they young or old? Are they women or men? Are they poor or simply able to take advantage of one too many loops in the system? Are all criminals the same, a set of criteria creating a proto/stereotypical criminal? Can we actually allow for the possibility in our minds that anyone is capable of committing a crime?
I’ve been trying to imagine a character for a story who has committed a crime that they didn’t see it in their own potential to commit. They commit it while not believing that they can and somehow they get away with it. Not implausible in SA sadly and in many other places. But do we forgive that person because they are not the criminal we expect?
More interesting than whom we think the criminals are is how we think they should be punished. At present as far as I understand (and not from personal experience) when you’re arrested for committing (or allegedly committing) a crime, you are commonly put in a holding cell until your bail can be posted. Is this punishment enough for some? Do we believe that the next step, a court case and then freedom or jail is a sufficient way to deal with people who flout the law?
I’m struggling because I think that there are crimes that are objectively wrong and one should never be forgiven for. Crimes that you should spend all your remaining days in a cell for or perhaps not spend any more days at all being alive. So I’m trying to work out how this character forgives itself, and how others around the character can forgive.
I’m interested then to hear what the readers think about crime and punishment — do you think we should aim for retribution or reconciliation? Should there be a death penalty? If you kill a criminal, should you be imprisoned? If you kill someone who is harming others daily, should you be imprisoned? And if we don’t imprison you, what do we do with you?
Do we think that in some cases a murder is ok?
Well, let me start by saying that a law (whatever it is to some people) is an agreement that is binding on all parties in a particular state or even outside of that state, by including other foreign states (the case The Khulumani is pursuing is such example). but that aside, for now at least.
If all South African, or rather most of them, agree that gay marriages should be legalised – as if not, then their right to/of association as enshrined in the constitution will not yield the expected result of an ‘equal society before the law’ – then let that be.
However, and having said that, I think one would have to be very careful here.
By careful I mean that if we all agree, or most of the law makers, that any kind of murder or skilling should be unlawful – it, I think we are all going to get killed in the end. But, who is going to kill the last one of us? God?
I agree that death penalty should be brought back. However, it should be proved ‘beyond reasonable doubt in a Court of Law, here in SA and in other Court around the world’ that the accused, for whatever crime, is found guilty of that particular offense.
This will not be a one-man-made-decision, but will be – as politicians would prefer – a collective decision that will be binding to all parties.
To be Cont…
Cont…
Going back to your point, if you killed someone with those who know of your crime chickening out on ratting you into to the police – then you are likely to get away with it. But, it does not make you any less of a criminal.
Your question, if one looks at it carefully, almost related to that which has been in the news of late – assisted suicide. This is whereby, and given the condition of my health or circumstances at the time, my family and I would decided that I cannot take the pain (whatever they may be) anymore and that it would be best if they helped me get out of this life, by helping me committed suicide.
So, be glad if no one knows or has ever caught you coz if that’s the case, then…
And whichever way you look at it, murder at time and in certain rare circumstances, can be justified. But, there are just those that cannot be comprehended as to why someone killed another. Simply put, other murder cases just cannot be made understood…
On whether we should forgive someone who turned to be a criminal we expected not to be, someone who committed a “crime that [he] didn’t see it in [his] own potential to commit. [He] commit[s] it while not believing that [he] can and somehow [he] get[s] away with it – and whatever his circumstances, I was once told that “IGNORANCE OF THE LAW IS NO EXCUSE”.
Cont…
That, I think, should explain it although I think might be a bit contradictory to some readers, and yourself maybe.
Stating the obvious, there are degrees of murder, accordingly to which the punishment fits the crime. So yes, in some instances murder ok.
Ultimately, the purpose of the penal system should not be punishment so that somebody else can feel avenged or vindicated. Rather it should be reformation so that a person who was at one stage destroying community becomes a community builder. Or to put it another way, a desire for justice shouldn’t be to see someone rot in hell, but rather to see them restored to what they could be.
In an ideal world…
My only solution is to free our justice system from the Roman/Dutch based paridgm because it does not serve our values but is rather too foreign. e.g. If I steal someones car and maybe harm them in the process. I get arrested post a bail of R10 000-00(which goes to the state and not the victim) and the person is left with the burden of finding money to buy a new car or the hustle of insurance claims.
Now the African Ok let me say the Zulu (cos that’s what I grew up on) way of settling dispute is that the victim compensation is key and not the punishing of the perpetrator – e.g.If my cattle vandalize the neighbors crop. I am compelled to replant the crop and tend to it till harvest. Also am compelled to give something as a form of apology (goat/sheep), thus re-evoking the trust that it was not malicious but the fault of the cattle herders. Now here the victim is on top of the pyramid and not the law!
Killing in defence of one’s own life (self defence) or in the defence of the life of one’s loved one is okay in my opinion.
If someone attacks me I will obviously defend myself. If the attacker happens to die because I defend myself it’s just his/her bad luck and not my intention. He/she should in the first case not have tried to kill me.
In in the case of someone attacking my loved one I will rather live with the knowledge that I killed the attacker than with the knowledge that I allowed him/her to kill my friend/family member/my four-legged child.
However, killing for any other reason – lust, jealosy, anger etc.is wrong and should be punished. However, I don’t know what’s the best punishment for this kind of killing – death? maybe; prison sentence? maybe; community service? probably not. Psychological evaluation and treatment: probably.
Someone who killed in self defence should not be punished but councilled for post traumatic stress or perhaps “sentenced” to attend a “self defence killers support group” through which they can be helped to put the experience behind them.
There is a difference between killing and murder. Are you talking about accidently knocking over a person with your car or ramming this person with your car in the heat of the moment? Watch the movie “Death Sentence” for an excellent portrayal of a law-abiding family person’s descent into the morally deficient hell of “kill or be killed”.
Have you read Dostoevsky’s Crime & Punishment.
One of my all time favorite novels.
Sometimes people make really bad choices and end up really sorry for what they have done.And then there are those who know exactly what they are doing and do it anyway. Some of these horrific horrific acts are UNforgivable and the assailants are completely UN-remorseful.Do we not think their victims would prefer the chance of 25 years to life?Educate yourself on the matter …listen to the screams of the victims-it will most likely scar you. But then tell me they deserve mercy- that they themselves couldn’t afford their victims. The Gangs in the Cape require murder to advance in the ranks! http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0d0_1188753462 -Ross Kemp on pollsmoor! Put them in prison…but the murder doesn’t stop there! Of course the death penalty shouldn’t be there by itself and it is not there for petty crimes. Increase the community service repayment(have criminals actually give back to society- in turn giving them some skills and self respect and in turn hopefully reducing the number of prisons needed and the bulky size of correctional department ) Put the onus on the Judge and lawyers- If they get it wrong there are SEVERE penalties for them- that should help reduce innocents slipping through the cracks. Of course this would also only work if the Justice system was independent- So much for that Idea. Of course anything like this would require free thought and political will something we sorely lack!
The court ultimately decides the degree of murder and applies a penalty accordingly. The death penalty should be brought back for those who deserve such.
Today there is enough technology i.e. DNA to proove guilt / innocence. The sentence can then be decided in court.
Whatever makes you suppose that getting away with crime in SA is implausible? Thousands are doing it every day!
Anyone with conscience has no need to forgive him- or herself. There’s nothing to forgive.
I still believe that Old Testament-type behaviour calls for Old Testament-type justice. Once social mores have been achieved, it would be easier to opt for reconciliation.
You could be looking at the situation from your own limited (no slight intended) experience and beliefs. There really is not much that human beings have not experimented with and the reason we have contract killings is because some have no conscience. People who kill repeatedly (serial killers) do so in the belief they will not be caught. Can’t see much sign of conscience, there, either.
Meant to write ‘anyone without conscience’. Sorry.
I would kill to protect my family. I may not feel right now that I have the ability to do so but at the time, if threatened, I would do it without hesitation. Should I go to prison for protecting my family? I would gladly take the death penalty knowing that my children are still alive because I made a choice. To protect the ones I love. So, I could very well be a murderer, if the situtation arose and I found myself asking: him/her or me?
The term ‘murder’ I understand to imply wilful intention and planning to kill. I really get worked up when, as ‘standard’ procedure, a ‘murder’ docket (in stead of homicide) is opened by the police against a person who has presumably killed in self-defence. On the other hand, numerous murders are perpetrated by armed robbers for no apparent reason. It is high time that the law in SA comes down on armed robbers like the proverbial ton of bricks. We urgently need a better gradation of punishment to fit the crime. Persons that violate other’s human rights must be treated in kind, taking into account extenuating as well as aggravating circumstances. The right to life is the primary right, but can be forfeited. The death penalty should therefore also be a legal option and is ethically and morally preferable to ‘shoot to kill’ instant ‘justice’ by the police. It is deplorable that both police and the justice systems are to some degree dysfunctional. Add to that the penal system, and equitable justice remains a distant ideal.