Beyond the Blame Game: A Deeper Approach to Understanding Crime
Acharya Prashant: A crime takes place, name the individuals, hunt for them, and punish them. This is the most superficial and hence the least effective way of looking at the problem or solving the problem.
One level higher than these are the people whose approach is to blame it on the system. They say, yes, people are to be blamed, but people are driven by the system, people themselves are victims of the system, so let’s change the system. They would say we need police reforms, we need judicial reforms, we need better civil infrastructure. One of the highest authorities of our country has recently talked of reforming the judiciary and how the long delay in resolving, disposing of such cases leads to widespread frustration with the judiciary. And then people are forced to take things in their own hands and deliver instant justice in their own crude ways. So, that’s an approach that looks at the system to fix the problem.
And then there is a third level, higher than the level of these two, that talks of culture. So, people who take this approach, this level, they talk of social attitudes; they talk of prevalent misogyny; they talk of patriarchy; they even talk of economic disparities. They would go into historical reasons, social reasons, cultural reasons, and they say that until and unless there is a social transformation, things cannot improve.
The people who take the second approach are obviously trying to go deeper than the people who say that individuals by themselves are responsible, and hence tackling and punishing those individuals is the way out. Then the people who take the socio-cultural and historical approach are probably trying to dig even deeper into the issue, and they are saying that just changing the systems won’t help; the entire social mindset has to change.
So, depending on the depth that you want to take, this whole matter of crime and retribution opens up in a different way. Each of these three approaches is valid. It’s just that the outcomes will be hugely suboptimal. If you take the first approach, it would be slightly better if you take the second one. They might be even better if you go for the third one.
So, these are the three types of responses we are currently seeing in the country and the entire world. Talking of figures, every day ninety cases of sexual assault are being reported in India. If we extend the coverage to the entire world, the data would probably move to many hundreds. And these are just the reported cases. We do not know the actual extent of the event. Moreover, if we look at the overall scope of all kinds of criminal activity, then the number would simply shoot into multiple thousands. And be it any kind of criminal activity, very broadly, these are the three approaches that we take: blame the individual, or blame the system, or blame the society and its culture.
Those who blame the system have more patience and more insight than the ones who blame merely the persons. So, those who blame the system, they will ask for legislative reform and such things. Those who blame culture have even deeper insight and more patience than either of the two other categories, and they will say that we need to look at the way norms operate in this society, what the norms, the prevailing values are. I suppose these people with their approach are the closest to solving the problem compared to the other two.
But I would like to talk of a fourth approach. Why do I need a fourth approach first of all? I need a fourth approach because when you blame the offender, when you blame the system or the society, I feel you are conveniently avoiding looking at yourself. One wants to say in each of these three approaches that somebody else is to be blamed. In each of these three approaches, there is the benefit of victimization that one is drawing. The finger is pointing towards somebody else.
“He committed the theft, he’s the murderer, he’s the rapist.” It’s very easy to point at somebody else. “I mean, I am not to be looked at. Don’t even talk of who I am and how I am. That fellow out there, he is the culprit. Punish him! Hang him, lynch him, whatever.” Or the system is to be blamed, you know. “What do we do? The entire country is like this. What do we do? The country is to be blamed! There are so few jobs, the economy is not doing very well, the education system is broken, courts are corrupt, justice is delivered at snail’s pace. What do we do?”
Do you see how helpless we pretend to be and how clean we want to show ourselves as? “I didn’t do anything. I had to take matters in my hand because it’s the judge who is lousy. I am a victim. Either I have nothing to do with the case, as far as culpability is concerned, or at most, if I indeed do have a relationship with the case, it is that I, too, am a victim in the case.” Even at the third level, when you are saying that it is our culture and our flawed values and stuff, mental stuff, that we got in heritage that is responsible, even then aren’t you just very cleanly and innocently and deceptively presenting yourself as a passive victim?
So, these are the three approaches that people have been taking, and I agree that the second is better than the first and the third is an even better approach. But there is something that these three approaches have in common. And that is?
Questioner: Look at the other.
Acharya Prashant: Somebody else is to be blamed. These three approaches differ in identifying who that somebody else is, but in saying that it is somebody else who is to be blamed, these three approaches are all in consensus, they all agree. Hence, a fourth approach is needed.
Full article link: https://acharyaprashant.org/en/articles/rape-and-retribution-perspectives-on-justice-1_8cda645
