Crime and punishment
........................
did crime or punishment come first ? i think punishment. before punishment probably there was no crime . punishment defined crime . and promoted it . one way being retribution against wrong punishment.
there sure was no crime before punishment came into the scene. it is precisely the punishment process which identified and defined crime. to suit the prevailing circumstances and reinforce the existing prejudices. nothing was a crime before that .
once crime came in its scope grew exponentially. may things got branded crime. dictated precisely by those who had the power of punishment. to define crime to prescribe punishment and to execute the punishment . an all in one arrangement.
first set of crimes which got defined was probably crime against god. becoz it was easy . then came crime against humanity. now we have crime against the country against animals against nature, who knows, crime against the universe .
punishment is a slower story. it was not easy. god's punishment was the earliest one. person to person probably the most popular. then came institutions . judiciary , jails , lawyers , executioners. and the system grew into such a complex form that it turned silly. ultimate decisions depended habitually on silly presumptions, unintended interpretations of the written word and so on.
retribution grew side by side. revenge against wrongs. vengeance against perceived wrongs. crime against imagined injustice. reaction against real injustice. such a vicious circle now . no one really knows what justice is. so we hand out punishments in paragraphs torn out of law books. justice in hollow words borrowed from our learned middle men in black.
crime punishment merry-go-round will go on for ever. hopefully
M K Mathai
