- posted in CNA by [quote="otter"]
This is a very general statement. There are still murders and
bodies get 'chopped', which are far from civilization. No matter
how civilised the people of a country are, there will still be some
black sheep.
:Reply by NinJaka
Agreed, there are some black sheeps in a civilized society and
should be punished. Some of the writers already mentioned that
harsh laws should be imposed for the severity of the crimes and not
across the board. They are using the "fear factor" to get the
message across which is uncivilized and that kind of system should
apply to third world countries and not for developed countries like
us.
What I suggest are they are many other harsh laws ought to be
reviewed. One good example is the chewing gum regulation which was
already being reviewed.
Reply by Robertteh
In a more developed or educated society like ours, the norms of
human conduct and behaviour should be skewed more to the educated
citizens so that laws and punishments of citizens will not have to
be that harsh based on worse of conduct of a few to be heavily
deterred.
The fact that there are some robbers or murderers in a society does
not make all citizens liable to become criminals to be heavily
deterred in the same way.
The judges should be more balanced in trying criminals in a more
civilized society. Yes there may be exception always e.g. an
educated person may turn out to be a robber or a murder but they
should not jump to the conclusion that education does not make a
difference just becauee of some exception among the educated. So
judges should not let the occurrence of a few crimes to pre-judge
or preempt the likely behaviour of the rest as this might only lead
to greater oppressions or over-punishment which might lead to
bigger problems.
The laws should not assume people to be guilty or liable of certain
crimes if such crimes are not seriously dealt with by way of
deterrence. However we often hear of judges or politicians speaking
in such tones which can be rather presumptuous.
The general rule should be set so that the worse assumptions in
laws should not be made because of occurrence of some crimes or
even increased crimes. Harsh laws should not be presumptuous and
should be reserved as a last resort against the wilful and
incorrigible criminals.
It will be quite wrong or over-bearing to make an lady landlords as
an example by jailing her for renting unwittingly flats to illegal
workers who in the first place should be left to the police to
deter and prevent and detect under the normal immigration and other
laws. Otherwise our policemen may even become lazy and want to ask
for more harsh laws to control crimes and not do their
duties.
It is to be noticed that in recent years more and more laws are
passed to make citizens answerable by way of deterrence to take
over the duties of enforcements even though civil servants are paid
higher and higher salaries. Government has also passed many duties
to MCST and TC and members of the professions nowadays to wash off
their hands. It is time for them to realize the they should be more
proactive in solving certain problems associated with government
and not keep pushing them away and do less and get paid more.
