Dear Editor
THE call to understand the criminal is a compelling imperative that demands our most unwavering attention. We can no longer dismiss the criminal as a mere sporadic inconvenience, a simple social misfit for whom civil society has long prescribed penal sanctions. No longer can mainstream, law-respecting citizens and their families see the criminal world as the ‘other side’, far beyond their own personal space, and posing no imminent threat to their lifestyle. Technology and the inexorable cross-currents of globalization have contracted the world, unceremoniously placing us in a common village, outside of the comfort of our former socially pristine vicinity, rendering us equally vulnerable to the criminal’s ruthless grasp. Why preoccupy ourselves with criminals after they have been caught and sent to prison? After all, when an offender is convicted and imprisoned, justice is done, the victim is avenged, and society’s laws are vindicated and upheld. It’s time to move on with our lives, right? Wrong, for although we know why we sent the offender to prison, we are quite oblivious of the effect of the prison on him after he has been duly punished and has participated in every rehabilitation activity. Our dilemma is this: the criminal has been reviled, arrested, convicted, punished and misunderstood.

Unlike the convicted criminal, mainstream members of society might not be offenders of the law but they might have to blushingly accept that they are lawful offenders. We might even admit that if justice were not blind, it would decree that many of us exchange places with some of our imprisoned youth. “Never in history has violence been initiated by the oppressed. How could they be the initiators if they themselves are the result of violence? There would be no oppressed had there been no prior situation of violence to establish their subjugation”. (Freire, 1970) Yet, some people become susceptible to criminal activities because of limited legitimate economic options and the sense of disappointment they experience in their daily lives, while others out- rightly reject the legitimacy of the law and its symbols of authority, and elect a lifestyle that seeks to fulfil their dreams, unmindful of legal restraints.

It is useful to recall that most of the people committing crimes are not caught; no wonder crime, at times, increases even with increased incarceration. Those offenders in prison represent only an index of the undetected criminals in society, while the ones outside continue to commit serious crimes. Could it be that the undetected criminals that roam the society have a greater and insidious role than those that are incarcerated? Could it be that some of our highly respected citizens who have scrupulously ‘honored’ our laws are partly responsible for an increase in crime? To use the cliché that “what is legal is not always right,” could our law-abiding citizens be one of the sources of our crime problem? Are governments wasting their resources by treating the wrong problem? Do our rehabilitation efforts need to be also directed on the outside in the larger community?

The journey we must take in understanding criminals will take us on an analytical tour of their past, and hopefully, into ours. Ironically, as we understand the criminal, we’ll understand ourselves better. Too often we are left clueless as to what could have caused respectable family members and friends to suddenly turn to a life of crime. Why are there so many repeat offenders, even when prison conditions are harsh and released inmates swear never to return? Why are so many of our youth, most of whom were nourished on healthy religious diets, become so socially malnourished and become vectors of the most infectious vices? Why do so many of our once innocent babies have ‘blood on their hands’? Even the most hardened criminal is sometimes amazed, even shocked, by his own heartless cruelty.

Yet, offenders do not go out of their way to be despised by society by being socially obnoxious. As responsible law-respecting individuals, it is part of our duty to unravel the mischievous mystique of the criminal if we are to be rewarded with the freedoms that we cherish. Once we have justified our need to understand the criminal, we must avoid the emotional sensationalism that’s usually associated with this subject by ensuring that our research methods are systematic and rigorous, and that our findings are empirically valid. Understanding the criminal is not an ordinary assignment, because there are so many plausible theories competing for our attention, and there are so many blurred, unexplored concepts, but we cannot afford to get it wrong this time around because it is by understanding the criminal that we will enhance our chances of coexisting with him, of sharing his world for, as we now know, the criminal is here to stay.

Regards
Adam McIntyre