Justice hangs on...

I am listening to the current calls from all sections of society that a resumption of hangings is part of the answer to crime.

I believe that examples should be made but not by a few deaths. It is time to review our laws and let the punishments fit the crime.

It must begin with detection and with enforcement. People break laws and are getting away. Why should criminals have fear? How do we make criminals pay?

If you rob someone, that means you take something tangible from them. Imprisonment takes their freedom but reinforces the need not to get caught not that its WRONG!

The old adage "who does not hear must feel" can be applied here. If you wish to rob a man, then be prepared to WORK as punishment. Not hard labour but REAL labour.

Make farming compounds and let inmates get up each day and work until end of sentence. No time off for good behaviour. Simply work for the time alloted by sentence.

If you wish to rape, then be prepared to be sentenced to PUBLIC hard labour, capital punishment and psychological sessions. They must suffer humiliation and scarring of victims.

Want to steal, as white collar criminals are wont to do? Work for a public service, at a standard wage, reporting to police each day, until you have repaid EVERYTHING you stole.

If you choose to litter, then clean the street that you chose to litter on. Punishment should be more than an IDLE or THEORETICAL THREAT but a real concequence for wrong behaviours.

This will also reinforce and reimpower a Police service that suffers from the incompetencies of a beleaguered system, where criminals are out and walking a day after they are caught.

I know that it may seem harsh to some but punishment MUST not just fit the crime, it must be WORSE! Having a death penalty is only a beginning, it is not the complete answer.

To those who will complain that what I am saying here goes against civil rights, I will ask, What about the rights of the victims? Are they not more important than the criminal?

We have the added benefit, that if an injustice does occur, we have not killed or psychologically scarred by torturous imprisonment, the wrongly accused party. Even criminals can be victims.

It is up to us to champion the cause, not just to to accept the effects and the solutions that are offered as is. Help build a new system of justice before presnt one breaks down completely.

We must send a message, draw a line in the sand and simply say ENOUGH! A man alone, can make no difference but if every person thought that, then NO ONE could ever make a difference!

Have YOU had enough as yet?

wP