On Crime

There has always been a strange sort of fascination with criminals and rogues in our society right throughout history. Robin Hood, for example, is still a perennial favorite, his robberies and raids condoned as being carried out 'to help the poor, against the rich'. Then, not in any specific order, there's Bonnie and Clyde, who were immortalised in a famous film of the same name starring Warren Beatty; there's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, who, in the aesthetically pleasing shapes of Paul Newman and Robert Redford and backed by that great song 'Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head', you actually find yourself rooting for; there's Ma Baker and her gang; and Billy The Kid, Al Capone, Charles Manson, and Ned Kelly, and many others. There is a tendency to see these people, not as the low-down social psychopaths they actually were, but as some kind of folk heroes.

More recently there was that Oscar winning movie 'Monster' – I read the files of that real life monster (or is there a word called monstress? If not, it should be invented for this specific woman) and the real story was nothing short of horrifying - worse, actually. I was disturbed there was a person like this on earth – and, for everyone being entitled to their tastes and all, I'm disturbed anyone should want to make a compassionate movie about this person and furthermore 'try to understand'. I saw the movie ‘Dead Man Walking’ – liked the soundtrack by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan – but didn’t at all agree with the message Susan Sarandon (incidentally, I like her very much too) was trying to get across. It, however, seems to be the fashionable trend these days. Especially with the celebrities. Most of them seem to be overflowing with the milk of human kindness for the Psychos, the Serial Murderers, the Rapists, and other such sundry characters of the world. Recently in Calcutta a man was going to be hanged for the rape and murder of a fourteen year old school girl and, guess what, the celebrity brigade turned up en masse protesting against such 'cruel inhumanity' and asking for the death sentence to be revoked 'on the grounds of humanity'. The 'cruel inhumanity' due to which the young victim will never know any 'grounds of humanity' apparently didn't strike them at all. Would it have struck them if, God forbid, it had been their daughter or relation? Before that I read about some people seeking to get a parole for a Serial Killer (who had incidentally tortured and killed several young girls over a long time period before being finally caught) on the grounds that she had been 'a model prisoner' and had 'acknowledged and rued her 'mistakes''. Well, what do you know, a Serial Psychotic Killer with a conscience actually! And here I was thinking that keeping them alive was on the same level as nurturing Rabid Dogs – pointless and a total waste of tax-payers' money!

Actually, that IS what I DO think, and I will make no apologies to the humanitarians. I don’t have any sympathy at all for Murderers and Rapists - I'm not interested in hearing about the rough and tough times they had growing up - hey, so did a lot of other people and we don't all go around killing and spoiling everything in sight - if anything, it makes most of us not want to hurt other people, because we know what it feels like to be hurt. So, no, I will not waste time sympathizing. I completely abhor the idea of paying taxes so that sex-offenders – people capable of raping even three month old babies – can be ‘rehabilitated’ and unleashed once more on society. I don't buy that New Age nonsense about such people ever reforming - such people NEVER reform, they just go on spoiling the world for the rest of us. I think the Death Penalty (and the sooner the better) is the only option - when you take someone’s life (without any case of self-defense) or destroy it by rape, you bloody well forfeit any right to your own. And if someone 'couldn't help themself' or ' didn't know what they were doing' or 'heard a voice', it's all the more imperative that they be taken out of circulation. These days there seems to be too much emphasis on the rights of the perpetrator – well, what about the victims’ shattered lives? The ripples are far-reaching you know. The whole family suffers, not just the victim. What about that? I rather preferred the Sally Field movie – I forget the name – where she avenges her daughter’s murderer – shoots him after the law releases him to rape again.

Last week a nine year old girl was raped in my area by three future candidates for 'humane treatment' – I'm so shocked and disgusted I can't even begin to express myself. That little girl required 36 stitches and she is going to be in the hospital a long time – and she's never going to be a normal, carefree nine year old ever again.

It made me as furious to read about one other such criminal, who had served some ten years and was about to be relased and talked about 'going back to apologize' to his victim – this, the article hinted, showed what a changed man he had become - I thought, OH MY GOD, I'm going to be SICK! - I mean, just think about it – someone shatters your life in this way and it's only by a great dint of effort - say, ten years - that you manage to recoup and move on, and the next thing you know some blithering goodwill agency is calling you beause this rehabilitated individual wants to come back into your life – what would you do, jump for joy?

There was another sob story in the media sometime back about a rehabilitated sex-offender complaining that he felt ‘discriminated against’ by his neighbors, who kept their children away and posted notices that people should be beware of him – gee, they were violating his human rights, you know! - can you imagine anything worse?

I could. For him.