One of the most memorable parts of Gregory Roberts’ enthralling novel “Shantaram
In front of the crowd of neighbours that had assembled around the scene of the fight, he orders the two men to work for the rest of the day cleaning the slum latrines. He then binds the two men together at the ankle using his scarf around one’s right and the other’s left leg “to remind you that you are friends and brothers, while cleaning the latrine will fill your noses with the stink of what you have done to each other today.” That evening, having convened a council of Hindu and Muslim friends and neighbours, he requires each man to learn one complete prayer from the religious observances of the other as their punishment for fighting about religion.
“In this way justice is done, because justice is a judgement that is both fair and forgiving. Justice is not done until everyone is satisfied, even those who offend us and must be punished by us. You can see, by what we have done with these two boys, that justice is not only the way we punish those who do wrong. It is also the way we try to save them.”
Qasim Ali Hussein’s wise solution seems to meet the five purposes of sentencing described in the Criminal Justice Act 2003: punishment (cleaning the latrines); reduction of crime and deterrence (cleaning the latrines in public and tied together); reform and rehabilitation (learning a prayer from each other’s religion); protection of the public (via the deterrence and reform mentioned above); and reparation (cleaning the latrines for the community’s benefit).
Why not compare this with a prison sentence under the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006?
Punishment (prison – arguably more comfortable than cleaning latrines); reduction of crime and deterrence (sadly there are some people for whom prison is not a deterrent, whereas there are very few people for whom cleaning the latrines in a Mumbai slum would not be a deterrent); reform and rehabilitation (prison – yet approximately 65% of all prisoners released were reconvicted within two years according to a 2007 Home Office study); protection of the public (prison); and reparation (prison – at a cost to the taxpayers in the community of approximately £39,000 per prisoner per year).
Some of you may say, “Ah, but Qasim Ali Hussein only has to serve justice to a tiny city of around twenty-five thousand people compared to tens of millions of people in, say, England. No wonder he can tailor his solutions so well.”
Yet he didn’t have policemen or courts to assist.
Don’t you think that we could spend £39,000 per prisoner per year on something which addresses more effectively the five purposes of sentencing described in the Criminal Justice Act 2003?
A good start might be to channel more resources to community programmes such as those highlighted by the Howard League for Penal Reform’s Community Programmes Awards. Why not read more about the awards – and nominate for the 2010 awards right now – at http://bit.ly/9Cnybn.
Tags: Community programme, Deterrence, Justice, Punishment, Rehabilitation, Reparation, The Howard League for Penal Reform