{"id":48181,"date":"2015-09-26T04:42:11","date_gmt":"2015-09-26T11:42:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=48181"},"modified":"2015-09-26T04:42:11","modified_gmt":"2015-09-26T11:42:11","slug":"obsessions-blur-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2015\/09\/26\/obsessions-blur-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"Obsessions blur justice"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Malinda Seneviratne<\/a>\u00a0 Courtesy The Nation<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Each time there\u2019s a gruesome crime, especially if the victim is a child who is both raped and murdered, the natural public outrage is accompanied by shrill calls for the implementation of the death penalty.\u00a0 We saw all of this when a five year old girl was abducted, raped and murdered a few days ago.<\/p>\n

The entire process throws some light on one of the key problems inherent in implementing the death penalty: error.\u00a0 What if the father was dealt \u2018mob justice\u2019.\u00a0 What if he were lynched, as some advocated because \u2018the law is slow and prone to abuse\u2019?\u00a0 What if they lynched the grandfather or \u2018the poor 17 year old boy\u2019?\u00a0 What would they do after someone else confesses? How would they bring the dead back to life?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The horror and outrage came with a barrage of accusations.\u00a0 Parental neglect was mentioned.\u00a0 The moral degradation of society as a whole was talked about.\u00a0 As days passed without any arrests being made the police was charged with incompetence.\u00a0 An impatient public and an equally impatient media began to speculate.\u00a0 Then began the hanging.<\/p>\n

First it was the child\u2019s father.\u00a0 He was not even allowed to attend her funeral; he was warned that mob justice might await him.\u00a0 Then it was the child\u2019s grandfather.\u00a0 Then it was a 17-year old neighbor.\u00a0 They were all hanged by both the media and by a punishment-hungry public.\u00a0 That was not all, every person close to those who was thus \u2018hanged\u2019 were also hanged for the crime of association.\u00a0 Even if no one pointed finger at them directly, they are scarred in ways that no innocent individual ought to be scarred.
\nBut why?\u00a0 Because the media wanted a gory story to sell?\u00a0 True, to an extent.\u00a0 Because there are thousands salivating to consume a gory story? Yes, that\u2019s true too.\u00a0 There\u2019s are demand and supply factors in these things.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Among those who blame the media for \u2018assassinating that poor, innocent 17-year old boy\u2019 after someone else confessed to the crime, are many who were earlier calling for the boy\u2019s blood and before that the blood of the victim\u2019s father and that of her grandfather.\u00a0 It is almost as if they are as blood-thirsty as the perpetrator clearly was.\u00a0 And it is as though everyone believes that whoever is responsible in whatever degree, there\u2019s one person who is innocent: him\/herself.<\/p>\n

The entire process throws some light on one of the key problems inherent in implementing the death penalty: error.\u00a0 What if the father was dealt \u2018mob justice\u2019.\u00a0 What if he were lynched, as some advocated because \u2018the law is slow and prone to abuse\u2019?\u00a0 What if they lynched the grandfather or \u2018the poor 17-year old boy\u2019?\u00a0 What would they do after someone else confesses? How would they bring the dead back to life?<\/p>\n

One might argue that the judicial process will not condemn or hang an innocent person, but history shows otherwise.\u00a0 There are of course other problems with the death penalty which should be discussed separately. The concern here is for the wrongly murdered.\u00a0 Had mob justice prevailed, either the father, the grandfather or the 17 year old boy would be dead. The murderers cannot offer any kind of compensation for the victim of their error.
\nIn this case, there was no \u2018mob justice\u2019 executed to the point where someone had to die.\u00a0 However there were multiple assassinations.\u00a0 Who is to blame for the additional suffering of the victim\u2019s parents and close relatives courtesy the insane rush to \u2018find a rapist and hang the scoundrel\u2019?\u00a0 Who is going to compensate and how for the irreparable damage to reputation and the pain of mind caused?\u00a0 What do we do with those \u2018corpses\u2019?\u00a0 Where do we begin the blame game and how do we end it?\u00a0 Indeed, do we even want to end it?
\nA five-year old girl was raped and killed a few days ago in Kotadeniyawa.\u00a0 Her name became known all over the country.\u00a0 It is a tragedy that ought to have sparked a debate on the safety of our children.\u00a0 We should be talking about what parents should do to protect their children, about safe environments and civil responsibility.\u00a0 Instead we let the discussion degenerate into a shouting match about crime and punishment where everyone seemed to be possessed by an insane desire to play judge, jury and executioner.
\nThis morning (Friday, as I write) the body of a 10-year old boy was found in Athurugiriya.\u00a0 He had been hacked to death.\u00a0 Who do we want to hang tomorrow, ladies and gentlemen?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Malinda Seneviratne\u00a0 Courtesy The Nation Each time there\u2019s a gruesome crime, especially if the victim is a child who is both raped and murdered, the natural public outrage is accompanied by shrill calls for the implementation of the death penalty.\u00a0 We saw all of this when a five year old girl was abducted, raped […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48181\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}