Much outrage has been expressed over the two vigilante-style killings the week before last, the first, and most disquieting in Sophia, and the second the following day in Berbice. In both instances the victims were alleged to have been thieves, and in the Sophia case it was reported that several residents in ‘A’ and ‘B’ Fields had had their houses broken into over the last two months. No one who claims to live in a civilized society, of course, would consider that justification at any level for what happened.
Leaving the moral and related dimensions aside, it has to be acknowledged that these events occurred within a context. In the first place, for a very long time now residents all over the country have been beating suspected thieves whenever they catch them, and there have also been previous instances where the victims died. The reason for the beatings is very simple: the police force is totally ineffectual. In the city, at least, where crimes of simple break-and-enter or burglary are concerned, the police will not even come to the scene or pursue any kind of investigation, as a consequence of which citizens frequently do not even bother to call them in relation to a theft which does not involve some aggravating circumstance. Even in the case of the latter, such as armed robbery for instance, the police record of arrests does nothing to inspire confidence in their capabilities.
As it is, therefore, in many areas residents feel they are on their own, and their security is in their own hands and not those of Guyana’s finest. In the better heeled districts private security guards proliferate, but in other parts exasperated residents may decide to keep watch in the hope of catching someone in flagrante, as they appear to have been doing in the case in Sophia. It must be added that even though ‒ as we reported ‒ the police outpost was only a ten-minute drive away from the site of the killing, those who were involved clearly had no inclination to bother with the officers there.
That again, however, possibly comes back to the fact that little confidence resides in the force to discharge its functions competently, and that some citizens believe that sanctions outside due process are more effective in terms of guaranteeing their safety. (This does not explain the appalling death of Nigel Lowe in Sophia, however, where the sentiment which ordinarily drives mobs appears to have been the prime motive inspiring the perpetrators.) It has to be added too, that those who beat suspected ‘thieves’ do not expect consequences to attend their actions, and in a general sense they are usually right, since any witnesses are likely to be neighbours who will not say anything.
But if that is the specific context, there is a general context too. As has been observed many times before, this is no longer a rule-governed society. From the top to the bottom the law is in abeyance. Every day the average citizen can see the traffic rules being flouted, for instance, and nothing is done about it; in fact, even the police themselves are not above contravening the traffic regulations, and when they stop a vehicle to inspect ‘documents’ the cynical assumption of onlookers is invariably that they are looking for a ‘raise.’
But while what happens on our roads is obvious to all on a daily basis, there is plenty evidence of other kinds of lawlessness which corrode the moral foundations which underpin our society. Bribery for example is by no means confined to the police force, and the public perception is that the problem is endemic at all levels in the country. However honest the highest echelons of government may be, if they display no willingness to publicly demonstrate transparency ‒ more especially if the constitution requires them to do so in a given respect ‒ then the rest of the population will draw its own conclusions. Restoring the rule of law starts at the top, not at the bottom with a junior traffic policeman – although this is not to say that it is not important that he or she is dealt with as well.
It was Andres Oppenheimer who in a column a few weeks ago pointed to the case of Brazil, where a Vanderbilt study had shown that following the sentencing by the Supreme Court of powerful members of the ruling party, and the sacking by President Dilma Rousseff of more than six ministers for alleged corruption, the number of cases of persons who said they had been asked for bribes dropped by half. An academic partner in the study explained that when people thought that institutions were corrupt, they were more likely to accept and pay bribes. Conversely, if they thought that government was coming down on corruption, then people behaved more honestly. Oppenheimer summed up the principle: “In general, corruption starts at the top and gets stopped at the top.”
That study dealt specifically with bribes, but of course as mentioned above here many laws in general tend to get honoured in the breach. The public perception is too that if one is rich or in a position of power or well-connected in terms of one’s relatives or friends, then the law can be negotiated. The government has done nothing over the last two decades to dispel that notion in the public mind. In addition, any sense of community in the urban areas, at least, whereby people respect their neighbours and do not blast them out with loud music, for example, has evaporated in many wards. Those who seek to live a decent, quiet, harassment-free existence are finding it increasingly difficult in an environment where everyone thinks only of themselves.
Now all of this is not to say that those who killed Nigel Lowe, for example, are not as answerable for their actions as anyone else who kills someone in other circumstances, let alone not as morally culpable. It is to observe, however, that some citizens who live in a society where the law is often ignored, bypassed or even broken with impunity, will be more tempted to make the wrong choices than those who function in a rule-governed environment; and if the police force is ineffective to boot, they may feel that that wrong choice is their preferred option.
We can and should deplore and try and stop vigilante ‘justice,’ but we should also recognize that it is symptomatic of a deeper malaise in the society.
