CJ plan: free jails and fill streets with criminals

The chief justice was of the view that the custodial sentence outlook is somewhat outmoded, and needs to be brought into line with more recent views on reforming criminals or deviant members of the public. He was unhappy with caceral over population and prisons overflow. From the sociological viewpoint it is hard to say whether the concept of alternative punishments is new or is itself out of date, for such notions come and go with time and are recycled on the basis of political sentiments or fads. The question that comes up in this context is how far the CJ's proposal tallies with what is taking place now, or was it more relevant earlier, that is, in more relaxed situations of governing? Does that idea tally with reinforcement of discipline or can it be added to the laxity of years of 'community policing'? This is one way in which ideas make their way unto the public platform, that kindred ideas appear at different levels of governance with a rift of about 10 years from the time ex-Inspector General Saidi Mwema took office to the time that Chief Justice Chande comes up with a similar concept. In that sense community punishments is akin to community policing, their common result being extensive lawlessness as that element of restraint no longer works to its anticipated optimum. It is a vacuum that aids culprits, the objects of justice. If such issues were raised in an American presidential election, they would both be expected to arise from among the left, who, in US parlance are known as liberals, but they would be classified as radicals in a European context. They have indulgent attitudes to criminality and law enforcement, which appears to them to be a necessary evil. If they were in charge (newborn leftists) they would call meetings to scold criminals. It is an extreme view of law enforcement partially related to humanist ideas as they have developed down the centuries, as society reacts to harsh conditions of life which breed criminality. The trouble with that view is that it looks at things from the viewpoint of the criminal, where he becomes a victim of the harsh conditions that indulgent sociologists speak of. In contrast, the more sober view is that all members of society live in those same harsh conditions, only that a criminal believes he is smart enough for easy pickings that he shuns work and takes a gun to maim for a living. Put differently, idealistic liberalism sees criminals as victims of inequality as a systematic social injustice, while the sober view or realism imputes to the criminal little but contempt for society, and hence the law. What makes him a special product of society isn't the amount of trouble he has run into when seeking to make a livelihood but intensity of contempt he holds in his chest about being law-abiding. The criminal shows the same contempt for the law that the witch shows for religion or faith, laughing at the idea of God fearing. That is why realists see in the CJ's proposal but a recycling of errors, namely the idea that society is going to be a better place if persons liable for custodial sentence of one to five years in prison are given ‘alternative punishments.' The closest one comes to viewing or fathoming such ‘punishments' is the image of a woman sweeping the streets at night, or those working at a quarry to harvest gravel, as it is a slow but labourious occupation. Still it would be strange to be told that it is sufficient punishment for robbery with a knife. There is something in the CJ's remarks that bespeaks of a strike at the highest levels of the Judiciary, in like manner as community policing was organised class action on the part of the police force. They shed most investigation to the public, that one phones them to tell them about violent criminals, and putting his life on line with that information. The same police officers, in cahoots with criminals, would tell them who gave them information leading to their capture, as police moved from enforcement to trading with the law. It is also evident that the CJ is showing himself to develop allergies with regard to criminal prosecution, prefers ad hoc tribunals and non-custodial sentences like sweeping city streets for six months, relieving the old women of that task. It is a sort of law Nirvana, an unworkable paradise of laxity that is suggested. This sort of relaxed attitude about law enforcement has its more professional side, that is, those who keep shouting that the public take the law into their own hands with common criminals. That spirit of sympathy is totally valid and in certain cases unavoidable if one comes across the scene of a lynching taking place, of a youth filled with terror in the eyes, still walking but with blood all over his body, before another stick or a rock descends on him. Horrible as those scenes definitely are, one begins to get the sense of a quid pro quo in figuring out the pain that a law-abiding individual feels when rascals descend upon him or her to pick off a bag, or in the case of the late Dr Sengondo Mvungi, punish his resistance with death. Using knives on anyone resisting their acts of theft or robbery is standard practice for robbers, and in that case society treats such individuals in like manner as animals feeding on one's farm. One wouldn’t think twice of using a poisoned arrow. Protests that human beings should not be equated with animals are valid only when one hasn't been a victim of a painful act of robbery, and at any rate that sort of indulgence and comprehension can't be expected on a mass scale. And that is what Justice Chande is suggesting, that people as a whole should shed the custodial sentence preference, that is, getting rascals out of our midst, just because the prisons have so many of them serving time. The proposal by the CJ, with due respects, is similar to a person who sees the formal wastewater channel blocked and decides to empty the refuse into the street. That this happens often enough shows that not too few people at times come to the view that it is viable, even as a method of pushing authorities to do something. But pound for pound, waste water is a lot more tolerable than such human refuse who ought to be in prison for any length of time that the magistrate sees fit, and if the government refuses to play ball, and emits this muck unto the streets, violence shall rise sharply and then acts of vengeance as well. After robbers killed an officer, TPDF showed how to do it in lawless Tabora town after the Iddi Amin war, grabbing known criminals from houses, delivering them to waiting members of the public and hack them to instant death.