Criminals are not the victims

My little experience with life has shown that the world tends to favour people on the wrong side of the law.

I say little because life is full of surprises and just when you think you have mastered it, it hands you a huge bomb that either explodes on you or detonates at a distance dependent on how one handles it.

But back to my topic, criminals seems to have the desired sympathy rather than victims and are accorded pity parties at the expense of the emotional wreck they cause others.

Recently, I was privy to a criminal case where to my surprise; everybody including the police seemed to side with the offender by persuading the complainant to resolve the matter outside court for peace’s sake.

The many unsought advice took the stance of reconciliation rather than the two parties dragging each other to court because in their view, we all need each other at some point, hence, no need to go ‘overboard’.

They paraded the noun forgiveness, orchestrating it as the best option, adding to err is human. Well, for one, my observation was prejudiced on the basis of these know it alls schooling the victim more than they should have been doing the perpetrator.

If it was about peace, forgiveness and blah, blah, blah, why couldn’t they teach the other party how to live with people amicably without crossing the legal boundaries on others’ rights?

Why was it in everyone’s interest to persuade the victim to drop charges and sympathise with the idiot in this matter who should have been enlightened on the repercussions of breaking the law?

If we ‘need’ each other, shouldn’t criminals be the first to know that? Do you know it reminded me of the many instances of incest where mothers or families, for whatever reason, victimise daughters further with requests to keep rape or defilement cases under wraps to ‘save’ the image of a father, brother, uncle or nephew.

Churches want to honour pastors even when he violates members of his flock in the name of forgiveness.

Taunts usually go to the victim rather than the perpetrator for revealing a crime to expose that relation or neigbour who society believes needs protection more.

There is a limit to how one can pump sense into one and indeed forgive.

Psychologists believe that criminology can be repetitive with offenders likely to commit crimes over and over again.

If we opt and rush to forgive and ‘talk’ about their offences, chances are we shall be letting that seed grow into something bigger than the initial crime and can be fatal.

Do we wait until a life is lost or property severely damaged before we acknowledge the incapability of one to live within society?

Again, why do we force forgiveness on someone who is, yet, to demonstrate remorse?

We assume they have suffered enough and will not repeat their mistakes and have them do it again in a blink of an eye.

If I want to press charges, allow me to in spite of whatever anybody thinks. If that girl, boy, woman and man feel aggrieved, allow the law to take its course without the hullabaloo of forgiving and forgetting orchestration. And if perpetrators break the law, allow them to face the music, too.

We can only understand their pain and trauma once in their shoes. As for the police, tread carefully because some of the persuasion breeds suspicions of corruption and indeed laziness.