Jungle Justice

Its 4:02am. I am jolted from sleep by the noise coming from outside my window, and I am certain a robber has been caught. Another robber. What comes to mind immediately is ‘burn him’. ‘Burn him?’ my head says to my heart and I am wondering when I became this inhuman. Aren’t all accused supposed to be tried and fairly too before judgment is passed?? Isn’t everyone entitled to a fair trial any more??

26th Dec. 2008, my phones where stolen, picked right off my bed. I am one to have all all my gadgets: phones, Ipod, laptop, digital clock, all the works beside me at all times and when I go to bed, they go with me. Luckily for me, on this day, my lappy was at a friend’s but I had all else beside me including my purse. I had just gone to bed, it was barely 2 a.m. My family was spending the Christmas holiday in Abuja so I was home alone with my cousin Albert. About 30mins after retiring to bed I awakened with the beam of a touch light in my face, my brain wouldn’t accept what was going on, the light from the touch blinded me and all I could see was a stick poking me and dragging my phones. I started shouting- Albert what are you doing behind my window?’ ‘Why are u dragging my phones through the window?’ It was when ‘Albert’ didn’t utter a word that it occurred to me that that wasn’t Albert at all. Reality set in, I was being robbed so I ran out of the room.

That was it, the robber was gone, gone with my belongings, one of them a week old pretty Samsung Phone.I felt bad, real bad, mad, raped. I burst into tears and was choking on it out of anger and pain and fear. I was angry and pained this was done to me in the supposed safest place in the world. My room, in my father’s house. Nothing beats the feeling of insecurity this experience left me with. I Just summoned the courage about 2 months to go to start sleeping in my room again. Since then, I have had a special dislike for robbers, especially the sort that prowl my neighborhood every night. Keeping people alert when they should be resting after a hard day’s labor I couldn’t imagine I was not safe even in my own fathers house and felt this overwhelming hatred for whoever had the guts to rob me. At that instance I would have killed the robber. It is the closest I have had to any robbery and it is enough for me. Nothing beats that crazy feeling of fear. The feeling of ‘kill him’ that quickly comes to mind is inspired by the anger and bereavement I felt at the thought of my properties being lost to a greedy, lazy, wicked person, but my head asks- is this right??

Jungle Justice. This isn’t a word per say and doesn’t have a definite definition but its a form of punishment. Jungle justice is usually if not at all times met out by an angry mob, usually who have passed their own judgment on an offender based on some certain codes of conducts of conducts or standard of morality. This brings me to what Punishment is and the different schools of thoughts on punishment. I know this feels like some kind of thesis!!

Punishment is defined as a penalty inflicted for an offense, fault, etc and there are 2 schools of thoughts: Utilitarianism and Retributivism. The Utilitarians believe that in punishing wrong doers, no one concentrates on the fact that a man has done wrong in his past, or punishes him on that account, unless taking blind vengeance like a beast. No, punishment is not inflicted by a rational man for the sake of the crime that has been committed(afterall one cannot undo the past) but for the sake of the future, to prevent either the same man or by spectacle of his punishment someone else from doing wrong again. At all events, the punishment is inflicted as a deterrent.

The Retributivists on the other hand goes against what the utilitarians believe, claiming Utilitarians are just using humans as a means to an end which in itself is wrong. The retributivists says punishment is justifiable on the premise that an offender must be made to pay for his crimes, building on slogans like “an eye for an eye”, what ever evil a man sows must also be reaped by him”, “the unjust will not go unpunished”. The retributivists see punishment as a ‘right’. They claim it is the right of the offender to be punished accordingly. They go further to say its a bit dicey tho to inflict punishment as what is the measure of punishment for a crime. What value is used to measure punishments for certain crimes?? At this juncture, I bring in the issue of jungle justice again. You find a man who has stolen chicken in village setting been beaten and battered. There have also been cases of pick pockets at bus stops being burnt to death and I ask- is such a crime commensurate with the punishment??

I support the Retributivist’s school of thought. I believe that for every action there is a reaction and man should be liable for the actions. He should be responsible for every action he takes and take the consequences of his actions. however I am not sure I subscribe to Jungle Justice. i am not sure I can go ahead and chant the ‘kill him’ when it comes to the ‘nitty griity’ of it.

Above are pictures of Jungle Justice being served to offenders. Looking at the pictures alone, I just want to scream stop it, please let them go…. and turn to the offenders, beg them and implore them not to commit such crimes again.

God help us all.