Punishment, perpetrators and perspective

Feb 01, 2020 Editorial

What did this, perhaps wiser than us, convicted robber mean when he uttered those arresting words? What did that young man intended to relay, when he publicly articulated the remarkable position that “jail time is waste time” when he was sentenced? However looked at, there is a huge range of interpretations that are possible, with none of them offering much of what is comforting for the reeling peoples of this crime-ridden society.
It is as if being punished to the tune of one and a half years in prison does not mean anything. It is as if this specific individual is shouting out to the world that is Guyana that if this is the worst that could be meted out, then do your damnedest. It is more than thumbing nose at society. It is spitting upon it and holding in complete disdain that which it inflicts as penalties, intended to serve as not so much punishment, but as part of a lengthy rehabilitation process.
Clearly, it (jail) is neither registering nor making an impact with regards to punishment, fails to function as a deterrent, and is not feared for either stigma nor loss of freedom nor the trials of confined hardship.
In other words, it is part of the price for following a criminal program, and it is one that if it has to be paid, then it will be with all the nonchalance and boredom of another day at the office. This is not only bewildering, but intensely alarming. For if perpetrators – youthful or seasoned, of the misdemeanor variety or felonious class – are neither impressed nor troubled, in the least, by the regular and most applied punishment for guilt in our justice system, then there is not much left to restrain the criminal hordes from running rampant in society. For, when examined carefully, it seems that they multiply daily and operate at will, however they wish, and at any time and place of their choosing.
Other than imprisonment for everyday violations of the law that reek of the callous and violent, and sometimes lethal, there is little else. There is little else to hold back the tide that rages relentlessly, that comes randomly and in numbers, that rears its head with intensifying barbarities and results.
What is there to hold them in check, to make them pause and think twice, and then some more, before immersing themselves in a life of crime? What is there to bring soothing to the peoples of this society, peoples troubled and fearful and living in dread?
Now, here is a young offender expressing the sentiments of what it is hoped is not the culture of the street and criminal havens. Because, if it is that a bottom feeder, a small-time petty criminal operator, has this untroubled mentality, it is disturbing to contemplate what the veterans and hardcore and serial criminals think of the spectre of incarceration.
One has to wonder whether the penal regime is considered to be so ineffective, so much water on a duck’s back, that it amounts to naught. It just may have become, in some respects, a home away from home. Among the considerations that have to be given weight is the probability, if not the unsettling reality, that the prison system can be gamed from the inside and made to dance to the tune of those who have broken the law.
From the continual reports of smuggled contraband, compromised prison personnel, the almost perpetual threat of jailbreaks and escape – and all the perils that those hold for apprehensive society – it is clear that there are unflagging efforts to undermine what can only be described as a shaky holding system.
When the jails of a country lose their sting, and the dread of being locked away for over a year is greeted with indifference, if not disdain, then something new and drastic has to be put on the table. The other day, one of the new parties – the religious one – contesting this year’s elections shared with the Guyanese public their thinking and call for the return of the death penalty and the cat o’ nine tails.
The latter was once held in great dread. Perhaps, it is time that it be reintroduced here.

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Punishment, perpetrators and perspective

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