By James Gitau
A young woman is about to enter the house she lives in with her parents, when two young men rush into the compound, point a gun at her and order her to keep quiet as they escort her inside. They ransack the house, putting their loot in bags, as a lookout waits in a car.
However, this is not their lucky day as their mission is observed by neighbours, who alert the police. Soon, the area is swarming with officers. The gang member in the getaway car is shot dead. The two in the house are like cornered gazelles surrounded by a pride of hungry lions. They know their time is running out fast.
In desperation, they figure out that the best way to postpone what looks like a confirmed appointment with their maker is to disguise themselves as women. The deception did not work, and the appointment was kept.
In the recent past, there have been increasing reports of criminal activity in Kenya. We have heard the security chiefs talk tough; nothing new. The Deputy President has given the police orders to shoot to kill. Also nothing new.
The question I have had for a long time is this: Has the tough action, whether decreed or legislated, reduced criminal activity? Has the famous Njoki Ndung’u Sexual Offense Act deterred sex-related offences? Has the killing of suspected armed robbers, or sometimes petty thieves, by the police or angry citizens made a significant difference in criminal activity?
If the answer is ‘yes’, and we are happy to display bleeding or charred bodies for our children to see on national TV, then maybe we should extend this method to deal with all undesirable elements in our society.
Torturous means
If the answer is ‘no’, which I suspect to be the case as I have no statistics of crime reduction as a result of the tough action, then we need to ask ourselves a different set of questions. Is there another way of dealing with undesirable behaviour in our society?
It is easy for us to say that those who live by the sword shall die by the sword, so the three young men paid for their sins. In my view, this is a simplistic approach to serious challenges facing our society, and will not reduce crime.
This approach reminds me of the oldest known explanatory model of behaviour: Demonology. People believed that criminal behaviour was the result of a possessed mind and/or body and the only way to exorcise the evil was by torturous means. Lives were lost in the process. The key was a focus on the individual rather than his or her environment or social forces.
Killing our sons and daughters who have gone astray, or even jailing them and throwing away the keys, will not protect us from criminals. Providing the police with more advanced weapons is a quick fix that may offer temporary relief but not the long-term results desired.
I recall driving a foreign friend along one of our major city roads. Though the road was tarmacked and had no potholes, it was bumpy. My friend was quiet for a while before asking in a concerned voice, “Why do you Kenyans love patchwork?”
Until he asked that question, I had thought it was okay to have a bumpy road as long it had no pothole.
Constant challenges
We need to bite the bullet and admit that something is seriously wrong within our society and that past solutions have not worked.
Indeed, the Deputy President has in the past repeatedly quoted the famous saying to the effect that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is madness. Is it not time we changed our strategy?
What if we started digging a little deeper and becoming more compassionate? Could we find some long-term solutions to some of the never-ending challenges we face as a society? Who were the three dead young men? What were their names? Who are their parents? Could their upbringing and environment have influenced their behaviour, ultimately leading to a destructive life?
What are the lessons we can learn from the lives of these young men and how can those lessons help us forestall similar acts in the future? Could your son end up like them?
Next week, I will share some fascinating behaviour change that transforms even hard-core criminals. Yes, unbelievable, I have eaten at a first class restaurant run and managed by ex-convicts in California, USA.
