Senior Lecturer Udaya Kumara Amarasinghe
Crime in society is on the rise. These crimes are influenced by the behavior of the people. How can we avoid committing a crime rather than regretting it? Should be noted. Udaya Kumara Amarasinghe, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, had a discussion on this criminology.
Why is crime on the rise?
The problem of crime is a problem that affects all countries, both developed and developing. We can basically classify these crimes. Violent crimes, or violent crimes, are what we call crimes against individuals. What happens there can be an assault by another person or group targeting a person’s body, physical abuse, injury, sexual assault, or murder.
Property crimes are the second most common crime in a society. Then there can be theft of property, damage to property, arson, fraudulent acquisition and so on.
The other type of crime is crime against society. These are sometimes considered crimes against the government. This can lead to anti-government conspiracies, riots and riots that threaten the well-being of the nation as a whole, and here too property is ruined and people are persecuted.
Such crimes are more or less common in society and are caused by a variety of factors. We also need to focus on identifying, studying, and responding to those who are victims of these crimes. Punishing the perpetrators alone will not solve these crimes. Even if he is punished, such crimes continue to be committed in society.
Here we need to focus on identifying the causes of these crimes before they occur and how to prevent a crime from happening.
Crime control is achieved by arresting and prosecuting a criminal and enforcing the law. Crime prevention is the process of identifying the causes of crime and offering short-term and long-term solutions to prevent them.
What are the crimes that take place in a society? What are the different causes that affect them, and why do people resort to crime? Are environmental factors affected? Or does it affect people’s education or social relationships? Third is the training to take on the attitude of success and achievement while undergoing emotional states. Criminology is the scientific and logical study of.
In recent times, attention has been focused on the formulation of laws and policies to control and prevent crime in Sri Lanka. Criminal experts have also focused on the establishment of an institutional mechanism for the implementation of those policy plans / rules. These need to be researched and these rules / plans can be formulated after researching the crimes that take place in the society.
This is the need of every society to reduce / control crime. We can only create social security if the need is met. Everyone who works for crime prevention, including criminologists and lawyers, has a big role to play in this.
Is the increase in crime in a country a problem of the law of the land?
This is a complicated matter. One definite fact that leads people to commit crimes is still unclear. Crime is a pattern of human behavior. Is this pattern of behavior good? Is it bad? Is determined by society itself.
Although we often think of ourselves as individuals, when we have to work with teams, sometimes our behavior patterns can cause someone to suffer, and society itself makes laws to prevent such things from happening.
If there is a collective agreement / tradition that an attack is detrimental to one’s life, then it becomes law.
Although people are born biologically born, they are educated through rituals from an early age. As he matures with age / knowledge, he gains experience in the society. Then there is a social discourse about the actions that take place from him and accordingly they are classified as good or bad.
Law is a part of culture and it is a social necessity. Laws are something that governs and guides people’s behavior patterns.
There has long been a widespread belief that biological factors play a role in crime, and even though it has been researched and accepted in countries such as Italy, they are still being discarded. If you take 10 crimes of the same type, those ten have committed those 10 crimes for 10 different reasons. This crime cannot be said to have been committed simply for a specific reason.
Another thing that has been socialized for a long time is that he commits theft / crime due to poverty. There really is no such thing. But there is a tendency to steal from supermarkets. An Army Colonel once stole a razor for 60 rupees from a supermarket. And not because of a lack of money. On another occasion, a doctor stole a piece of gold. These people have a criminal tendency. These people get mad at stealing. This is an unusual mental state.
Does the death penalty reduce crime?
There is an opinion that the death penalty has the potential to reduce crime in a timely manner. This is also a matter of controversy. Others say this is useless. That is what those who look at it from a human rights perspective say. The death penalty was practiced in many parts of the world until the 19th century. But by now the idea of punishment is gone. The philosopher Michel Procu was one of the most widely discussed and researched people in the field. According to his analysis, these punishments inflict pain on the body, which is temporary and may be forgotten over time.
At present, there is a growing worldwide memory that the pain inflicted on the body should be inflicted on the mind. There are already countries in the world where the death penalty is active. Although the death penalty exists in our country, it has been abolished. A former president even ordered a rope from Belgium to carry out the death penalty. Although there was a lot of talk about this during the last government, we have not implemented the death penalty since the 1970s.
The death penalty is imposed for murder, drug offenses and anti-government conspiracies. But the death penalty for these three offenses will not reduce crime, rape and theft in this country.
My research has shown that the majority of those sentenced to death in prison are those with a lower level of education.
There are three main reasons for these murders. The first is land disputes, the second is casual relationships, and the third is drug or alcohol abuse.
The main feature here is that many of these murders were not premeditated. They are occasional killings over conflicts.
Talking to them, it was revealed that although they knew that murder was punishable by death, they had decided that this was the right thing to do and had responded to it. This is related to their level of intelligence.
As the level of education increases, we can see that the number of crimes committed systematically is also decreasing. People with higher levels of education are not without imprisonment. But as a percentage, it is mostly people with the lowest level of education. People who never went to school are still in these prisons. They need to be given a good education and discipline.
Does the use of the media help to increase crime?
As a criminologist we can still make only assumptions about it. This is exactly what he said after discovering that there must be a logical correlation between the media process and criminal behavior.
But we see that there is a lot of media coverage of abuses in the media, the recognition of suspects / criminals, the creation of a culture that appeals to them, and the way people perceive them. Then teenagers embrace heroism rather than an act that should be ignored and despised.
Today, the media has also helped to learn the technology of crime. How a crime was investigated, how it was discovered, the criminal’s previous activities, etc. are being reported by some media today. Then, if a person intends to commit a crime, he can overcome the shortcomings and commit the crime in another way. This is a very sad situation.
How are police complaints investigated?
The police have the primary responsibility for responding to a criminal complaint. According to the information received as a suspect, the police conduct investigations and report the facts to the court through a B report. This is what we call the response process. Meanwhile, the police have a pre-identification process. As I mentioned above, we will identify crime hours, high crime areas, etc. and take steps to prevent crime.
In some cases, the arrested suspects prove that he is not the real suspect along the way. Then the suspect was greatly prejudiced. As such, there are instances where suspects are harassed due to certain police actions.
Do victims have social rights and entitlements?
Much of society is talking about criminals and suspects. But they can only be punished if the victim of a crime complains to the police or the courts.
But most people in this country do not complain when they are victims of a crime. This is probably due to the influence / threat / harassment of the guests. This is to allow the perpetrator to be free in society. Delay in administering justice. This makes society insecure.
I think society should pay more attention to the victims of crime. To the Witnesses.
There are some victims in this society who do not know that they are victims of a crime. Violence against children is one of them. They do not see it as a crime. Others do not complain out of embarrassment.
If a person violates the criminal law of this country and threatens the complainant, he has recently gone to the police and lodged a complaint.
But an important law was passed in this country in 2015. Aid and Protection of Victims and Witnesses of a Crime Act No. 04 of 2015. Victims are legally recognized here. They are protected by the influence of the case and the influence of the witnesses. This law has a program to provide protection to them if they report this to the courts.
Also, when going to the police to lodge a complaint, the complainant should be treated with respect. This is a right and a right. It also has the right to hear the complaint impartially.
If not, victims of crime may file a complaint with the Witness Protection Authority.