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| Sunday, 1 June 2003 |
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Features |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
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Crime and inequality: The impunity of power by Jayanthi Liyanage It looks as if our small country is receiving a whiplash of catastrophe which is almost too much for its modest frame and dimensions.
The recent street-killing of a provincial minister in the city-centre of Colombo, and a political personality firing into the sky during a wedding ceremony held at a prominent five star hotel, are refractions of the different faces of anarchy (or, a different kind of monarchy) coming into vogue in today's Sri Lankan society, which has previously shown more allegiance to law and order. "It is accepted that Sri Lanka was more akin to a conformist society before the decline; the trend now is to move in the rebellious, innovative direction," notes Donald Chandraratne in his book, Making Social Policy in Modern Sri Lanka. "Any society that moves in that way is bound to show aberrant behaviours." These incidents bring us, the "civil"-ians, to encounter the compelling presence of the "un-civil" element, exerting power behind the established dual layers of 'civil' society and the governance frame. Single objective At the end of the day, all violent acts the country reports from far and near, could be said to have been committed with a single objective, whether their sphere be domestic, social, economic or political. That is - to assert, or achieve, power. For, the current Sri Lankan society has become an alarmingly power-centric society in which violence seems to be the common operative mechanism of perpetuating and re-emphasising its power-peddling structure. Recent global research recognizes the inequality of power in society, as an important determinant of violence. Even after controlling the distribution of education, poverty, ethnic and economic polarization, security services and social capital, the research observes that inequalities of power could still generate violence. In our country which is at present, is in temporary instability while seeking solutions to some crucially important political and economic decisions, "Social tensions have increased, with these frustration often finding an expression in social explosions, conflicts and extremist movements." Such political and social tensions, as quoted by the researcher Dharam Gai, could also be traced to the power inequalities and the resulting violence, even in the home sphere. A husband may batter his wife because she refused to accept his territory of authority. An owner of land could be annihilated, by land-hungry individuals hankering after his property. There could also be instances of so-called "social cleansing" where individuals take law and power into their own hands to mete out 'rough justice' to whom they view as an offender. But, all these usurpings of power are negative manifestations of the civil society and stand to be transformed by fairer distribution of power among the actors. Syndrome of the power-seeker So, violence which was previously regarded as criminal pathology, is now newly seen as "the syndrome of the power-seeker". Sociologists also see it as a development problem, happening specially in urban areas. Therefore, against a scenario of macro and micro economic growth, there could also be crime, robbery, gang violence, gender-based domestic violence which threaten the well being of society and individual men, women and children, by individuals and groups who seek to fortify their fortresses of power through violent methods. Global research recognises violence to emerge from three directions seeking power - the political, the economic and the social - and identifies types of motivations which consciously or unconsciously uses violence to gain or maintain power over these areas. Political violence for gaining political power, economic violence for wealth power as in street crimes and underworld activity and social violence for interpersonal power such as in the abuse of women and children. "The usual pattern is that when you are in power, you want to be prominent," says Superintendent of Police D.S.S. Lugoda, Director, Colombo Crime Division. "This gives way to competition followed by hatred. To maintain your power, you hire a private army to do deeds which you, yourself are not capable of doing. These armies are usually bad characters, coming mostly from the underworld. You give them refuge and shelter and even bail them out by hiring the best lawyers in the country when they get arrested for their anti-social activities. Such protection makes it difficult for the police to track them down." Suptd. Lugoda cites politicians and businessmen carrying out illegal trade as possible employers of such private armies. "Maintaining such armies is not easy. They are constantly in need of money to patronise casinos and solicit women. Often, they get involved in anti-social activity to own posh vehicles, cellular phones and other luxuries. Our whole social system has now got used to this kind of power play." He is also quick to mention that such personal armies are not a permanent feature in a power-personality's life. "Once their use is over, they are discarded. But the danger is that while they are in power, they will engage in criminal activities. There are also the instances of some people thinking that they can get quicker results by approaching underworld gangs, when there are delays in enforcing law. The result is once again, anti-social doings." On one hand, as Sirisena Herath, DIG-Crimes, voices, the campaign of the police to demotivate anti-social activity among "perverse social capital" such as the rural or urban sexual offender, the juvenile delinquent and the village thug or gangster, could be negated by several social factors. Prominent among these are the lack of education (specially among the Sinhalese grassroot community), the absence of a religious back ground and the temporary slackening of family bonds, possibly through economic reasons. lack of expertise On the other hand, the State is hampered by the lack of expertise in the law enforcement system dealing with organized crime and inadequate access to sophisticated investigation techniques, and the proliferation of fire-arms in society, a spillage from the now stalled war. Gone are the days when socially in-built taboos, acted in place of laws, effectively inhibiting early society humans from exerting personal power to perpetrate sexual crime. Early men viewed certain female groups on their maternal side as "mothers" and perceived sexual contact with them to be "taboo", tantamount to death or self-annihilation. Even girl children in such groups were said to be called "mothers" and respected as such. The modern extremes of liberalism, coupled by power-politics, spurns taboos which are usually its checks and balances. But the imposition of laws in place of in-built taboos seem to be more difficult as a preventive measure of sexual crime. A recent global study suggests that although we consider social unrest, anti-social behaviour and crime to be related to power pollution of socio-economic factors, they may be partly due to environmental pollution of inner city environments. As such, lead in the urban environment is contributory to criminal behaviour. Therefore, the civilian safety rests not on the local police station but also on an environment free from power and environment pollution. Hindering crime prevention is the increasing inability of the susceptible segments of society to exercise power and a lack of far-sighted preventive and protective mechanisms and social infrastructure to defuse such crimes in the first place. As the law enforcement authorities point out, the country's existing laws could afford ample protection to citizens from criminal harm, yet are impeded by the inadequate implementation of the law and protective measures, and the ignorance of people themselves on how they could be employed for protection and restitution. Among recommendations from social scientists to curb crime is a new approach which speaks of "rebuilding and re-empowering social capital." Such process takes place at family, community and the judiciary levels, providing the public sector interventions needed to reinforce civilians and prevent crime. As Suptd. Lugoda points out, if all the power which is roaming freely in the country had been utilised into doing something beneficial to humanity, Sri Lanka's current malaise of crime could have been vastly reduced. |
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| Editorial | Security Produced by Lake House |
At one end, nature has badly bashed its social and economic structure
with a massive-scale disaster of floods and earthslips, with warnings of
more disasters to follow. At the other end, it is being consistently
battered by disasters perpetrated by a hand more merciless in intent than
nature - which is the human hand.
