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The prevention approach to crime-busting

Prevention is better than cure. This principle is applicable to both health and crime. We are given to understand by Interior Minister John Amaratunga that this cherished rule would underlie the operations of the Colombo Crime Division which was ceremonially declared open recently.

The chief aim in establishing the C.C.D. is the curbing of crime but the approach to this task would be to prevent crime from occurring rather than go through the exacting routine tasks of investigating, arresting and helping in prosecuting suspected wrong-doers, the Minister had pointed out.

This is a bold and refreshing approach to crime containment. The effectiveness of this approach would depend considerably on the ability of law enforcement personnel concerned to detect conflict-situations among the public and initiate early steps to defuse them. Particularly, inflammatory disagreements and tensions among members of the public need to be detected and resolved. The ability to do this would, therefore, be determined largely by the vigilance, mobility and conflict-resolution skills of the law enforcement officers on the beat.

Crime in Sri Lanka today is admittedly a complex problem. While stringent law-enforcement is a need of the hour, fierce business competition, the unfettered growth of the acquisitive instinct among sections of the public coming on the heels of a rising popular demand for wealth, luxury and the "good life", all play a significant role in the substantial crime wave. Gang warfare spurred by the continuing drug trade compounds the problem.

These social tendencies place heaps of burdens on the law enforcement authorities. The policemen on the beat should, besides being expert sleuths, be also counsellors and peace-makers of considerable skill if the prevention rather than investigation approach to crime curbing is to prove effective.

The effectiveness of this prevention approach is based on the principal premise that the policeman would be close to the public in both physical and emotional terms. The policeman couldn't be expected to defuse conflict situations among the public if he is not part and parcel of the public. In other words the police cannot afford to be an impersonal force.

The nurturing of sound public-police relations is therefore vital. Right now this is not happening consistently nor uniformly. We are given to understand that a scheme to set up model police stations is also under way. A fundamental aim of this project should be to foster people-friendly police officers who would be a boon to the public. Then perhaps, the public would also give of their best in crime prevention.

Media coverages and justice

Britain's justice system and its media are pondering the effects of the saturation coverage of the gruesome murders of two little girls whose decomposed bodies were found two weeks after they went missing on August 4. The British media tapped into the nation's angst over the killings and in doing so may have jeopardised the fairness with which the justice system can deal with this horror. This is an issue that concerns not only the media and the jurists of Britain but all societies around the world where a commercial press is active.

Journalists are motivated to run after a news story. When something such as the murder of two innocent girls is concerned, there is a media feeding frenzy that ends up with the suspects in the case often tried and found guilty by media. Such a situation does not make for an unbiased jury, as in the public eye the alleged perpetrators of the crime are already guilty. Britain has now got into a situation where "it is so impossible to hold a fair trial and yet so imperative that a trial is held," in the words of senior British Lawyer Malcolm Fowler.

Caution should be the name of the game when a situation like this arises. The intensely competitive environment that newspapers and broadcasting stations have to survive in should not be allowed to put in danger the fundamental rights of the accused who are innocent until proven guilty by due process.

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