Police, legal system encourage housebreaking – Ravinder Singh

It is retarded thinking to sympathise with housebreakers who are criminals for what they do is premeditated and they break in prepared to do anything if confronted by people in the house, even to kill, maim or rape knowing that they may still get off scot-free either by not being caught or by being defended by lawyers and released due to “insufficient evidence”, “inconclusive evidence”, “alibi evidence”, “failure to identify at identification parade” and so on.

Are all housebreaking cases solved by the police, and how fast? Has police action over the years reduced cases of housebreaking or for that matter of breaking into shops, offices, banks?

Or are housebreaking and other criminal cases mere public perception as Pemandu would have Malaysians believe?

It is really unthinkable why Mohamad Zulkifli Ismail who had in self defence killed an alleged robber is being charged by the police for using “excessive force” in self-defence.

It is failure of the schools to enforce strict discipline among school children who carry that indiscipline into adult life, failure of the police to put fear of the law into criminal minded people and the “humanitarianess” of human rights defenders who defend criminals against “excessive force” in self-defence that has emboldened the criminals.

Housebreakers and all those who trespass into others’ properties with pre-mediated, pre-planned criminal intent forfeit their human rights the moment they cross the boundary into the private properties of others for at that moment they morph themselves into pests and like pests they deserve whatever the homeowner does to them in self-defence like he does to mosquitoes and rodents that get into his house or onto his body.

Since they are prepared to do anything to anyone that comes in their way while carrying out their criminal intent, they should similarly be prepared for whatever happens to them in the process, even death, and the authorities, especially the police and the legal system, should not give them an iota of protection under “human rights” or any other label or legalistic arguments about “reasonable force” in self-defence.

It is very easy to talk about “reasonable force” in self-defence, but not only how do you define it, even more important is how do you train every human being to use only “reasonable force” while in a panicked state of mind under threat of untold danger to one’s life and limb?

Could the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) please prepare a manual on “reasonable force” in self-defence and then draw up a syllabus for training people on using just the right amount of “reasonable force” during conditions under a panicked state of mind? Don’t just talk, do it and show the results.

First, go and tackle the indiscipline in the schools. This is where future criminals are being bred. The criminals of today are the indisciplined children of yesteryears.

All the formal moral and religious education teaching have failed to create a disciplined society. So could the IGP and his team of experts please concentrate on disciplining the school children as a positive measure in reducing future crime.

Only humans should be accorded human rights and given protection of the law. Humans should be compassionate, loving, caring, etc. and committing any crimes against other fellow humans should never cross their minds.

When a human develops criminal intent and carries it out knowing that his actions could cause injury or even death to this victims, he does not do it as a human.

Thus, there is nothing “inhuman” about letting these criminals face whatever fate befalls them in the process of carrying out their criminal intents.

Showing criminals sympathy by protecting them with niceties such as “use of excessive force in self-defence” only emboldens them, increases crime, affects innocent persons, and does not help the police to keep criminals in check.

It is already so bad that our school system has helped to produced criminals rather than disciplined persons, and now this is being confounded by protecting those criminals with legal arguments and invoking “human rights”.

There is no need for the Malaysian Crime Prevention Foundation or any other bodies to feel sympathy for criminals and organise forums to discuss people’s “right of private defence”.

If anything is needed, it is to amend the law to give total immunity to any person who in self-defence inflicts any injuries or even death on intruders and criminals, even if they are not carrying any weapon, even a small stick, while in the act of carrying out the crime.

Recognise the fact that bare hands can kill, not necessarily weapons.

It is, for instance, very wrong for armchair experts to think that an unarmed person (unless he is physically without the upper limbs or ‘arms’) cannot cause much harm to another person and therefore the other “should not use excessive force in self-defence”.

People can be killed by the use of bare hands and feet. The one under attack is therefore justified in using any means to defend himself, even if that results in the death of the attacker.

The attacker is the one who put himself in such a situation and why must the whole world sympathise with him and devise laws and arguments to protect him?

Comparatively, thousands of people die on the roads every year, a good majority the result of reckless driving. Reckless drivers who kill innocent road users are for all intents and purposes, murderers.

How many of them are being charged with “murder”? The lawyers will argue they had no intention to kill anyone.

But they cannot be ignorant of the fact that accidents kill people, that reckless driving can cause accidents, and if they cause accidents, they could kill people. If they still persist to be reckless, isn’t that intentional?

There are times and situations where it is necessary to be “cruel” to be kind. It may appear being “cruel” to let criminals suffer injury or death at the hands of their victims in self-defence.

But what about the cruelty and suffering they inflict on their victims? How many snatch-theft victims have died or suffered severe injuries?

How many people have been raped, injured and killed in the course of housebreakings? How many innocent people are injured and killed in brawls and fights like the recent one in a Penang coffee shop?

Sympathise with the victims, not the perpetrators of any form of crime. Don’t give face to criminals of any colour or beliefs.

Criminals are criminals and not human. So there is no need to treat them like humans. Leave them to their fate, as it is their choosing to be criminals. They should know the risks they are taking.

If crime were likened to a business, the criminals take a gamble. A business man may lose all and become a pauper.

Similarly, a criminal may lose all as well, i.e. lose his limbs and life. So what? He asked for it.

The world does not owe him any bailout under the cover of “excessive force in self-defence”.

His criminal act indemnifies all the consequences upon himself of his act, including death. – January 7, 2016.

* Ravinder Singh reads The Malaysian Insider.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.