Violent crime

Press, 18 April 1986, Page 16

Violent crime

Sir, —In all the assessments and solutions offered, I do not think anyone has yet mentioned the makers of cigarettes, alcohol, hard drugs, and most television programmes. If a cheap, effective, fast solution is being sought, maybe we would need to detain these people in prison for a good length of time; and see the changes that would be wrought in our society. How would everyone feel about that?—Yours, etc., N. W. MILANOVICH. April 15, 1986.

Sir,—While harsher penalties for violent crime are appropriate, we should not fool ourselves that it will make any difference. The real problem is the rate of cultural decay in our community. If we bring up our young in a community which stresses material possessions, where more money and less regard for

the economic interests of the whole community is the accepted norm, where participation in community affairs is always something for others to do, and in which cultural and moral values are not given prominence, then those youngsters will be more likely to develop criminal tendencies than ever before. They acquire their idea of community and their place in it from a narrow base, especially television and the mass media, in which negative influences predominate. A community which freely tolerates this, and gives no support to individuals and organisations struggling against it, really has only itself to blame. — Yours, etc., D. J. O’ROURKE. April 11, 1986. Sir,—Popular sentiment in favour of harsher penalties and punishment for wrong-doers is formidable and understandable. But is it sensible? Where violence is institutionalised as a punitive measure it only underlines the violent nature of our society as a whole — it does not reduce the total amount of violence that surrounds and degrades us. The call for retribution reflects an “us” and “them” mentality, which is counterproductive to solving the problem of lack of respect for person and property. When we identify and isolate the violent criminal "them,” then we, by definition, must be the non-violent, noncriminal “us.” The call for personal responsibility is futile unless heeded with a collective community response, where we all accept some responsibility for those who do not, or do not wish to, fit into our society. — Yours, etc., E. R. L. WILSON. April 14, 1986. Sir, —Some suggest that blaming society for offenders’ behaviour excuses them from accepting responsibility for their actions. Is not the issue more one of society denying its share of the responsibility and blame, using these “thugs” as scapegoats and giving individuals an easy way to avoid confronting personally challenging issues? Look at the production line. A child, if lucky enough to escape violence and death in the womb, is bom to have physical hunger satisifed with warm milk and mental hunger with television images of violence, sex roles and sensation. The child may grow up sexually and physically abused, with poverty, drunkenness, broken marriages, and eventually be kicked , out on to the street to survive on

drugs and crime. Children are raised in a competitive society where material, political and spiritual individualism destroys any hope of a caring and compassionate community. — Yours, etc. A. J. DAKERS. April 13, 1986. Sir,—ln your editorial comment on my letter (April 11) you appear deliberately to miss my main point, which is that your newspaper, along with others, should be campaigning actively against the ills that beset our society. I agree that “like other newspapers, ‘The Press’ devotes a great deal of space, not paid for by advertisers, to air such issues as crime,” but you do not, as overseas newspapers do, lead the battle against it. It is for this reason that I suggested that you are not doing your job properly, thus making it necessary for others to do it for you (in this case, the advertiser). Perhaps you should accept the oftrepeated challenge of Mr Brian Priestley on “Fourth Estate” to send some of your journalists out to do some “good, investigative reporting.” — Yours, etc., J. D. BAKER. April 11, 1986.