Crime and criminals: hard nuts to crack
Sunday 23 September 2012
The general public’s reaction to the recent spate of violent and sexual crimes in Sri Lanka was one of exasperation rather than anger or finger pointing. The opposition political parties however, took the line that the ‘collapse’ of the economy, maladministration of the institutions that are to uphold the rule of law and the overall social decline were behind the crime wave. The JVP went so far as to demand a broad ‘political transformation’ as the cure for the dismal situation. 
Many observers and commentators who spoke of a crime wave did not appear to have put the recent cluster of crimes in the appropriate contexts of ‘normal’ crime rates in the country, or internationally. For example, the several mass murders that took place in the United States during the same period, including the attack on the Sikh temple in Wisconsin do not appear to have been considered in the analysis. With the aid of statistics, the police showed that in reality there was no significant increase in crime rates in the country; the number of murders in 2011 actually decreased from the previous year, nor were the crime rates in Sri Lanka particularly high in comparison to other countries. The police spokesman also
emphasised that there is no political interference in the arrest of criminals. Reluctantly granting that there was indeed a ‘crime wave’, and without any intention to be politically partisan, the purpose here is to examine whether the attempts to blame the government, government politicians, the police, and the judicial system were based on sound reasoning or evidence. Absence of any such reasoning is likely to lead to the conclusion that the blame game was a mere political ploy by increasingly desperate opposition groups which do not seem to be able to ‘take a trick’ at the moment.
Causes of criminal behaviour
The levels of shocking brutality that had been perpetrated in some of the murders reported over the last six months, such as the Kahawatta murders, makes one wonder as to how humans could descend to such levels. The appalling inhumanness displayed in the rape and murder of the six year old girl in Kirulapone put the boundaries of human-animal divide into question.
Irrespective of the shocking nature of these crimes, blaming the government, or any other institution or groups of people for that matter, for such heinous acts appears uninformed in the light of the complexities that govern criminality and processes of the administration of justice.
Some answers may lie in the field of criminology, the field of study of factors governing criminal behaviour and other aspects of crime with a view to reduce and prevent crime rates. Criminological theories generally attribute criminal behaviour to a range of factors: Some crimes are simply the result of ‘rational choice’ made by perpetrators after weighing up the consequences including possible capture and punishment. Most violent crimes including rape and murder however are likely to have been committed by individuals influenced by societal environmental factors including community and family ‘disorganisation’, social learning, and labelling.
