The lawmaker and the criminal mindset

What does it say of a person who can rationalise his way out of doing something bad and even criminally wrong.

SO last week, there was this person who said in the Dewan Rakyat that stealing is only a crime if you get caught.

Of course our jaws dropped when we read this amazing declaration from a, ahem, lawmaker.

Is he kidding? And because he is from Umno, which was led by the allegedly biggest thief the country ever saw, it was all the more reason to want to gag.

Rather it got me thinking and researching on this thing called crime. And as usual, there is always more than meets the eye.

Google “What is a crime?” and you get over two million results, the majority very legalistic. Indeed, we all tend to associate crime with punishment and that means involving the authorities and the courts.

Then I came across this insightful article on the American Historical Association (AHA) website, www. historians.org, which delved very deftly into the questions of what is a crime and who is a criminal.

First off, AHA says the word “crime” is one of the hardest words to define in the English language.

The definitions include “an antisocial act”, “a failure or refusal to live up to the standard of conduct deemed binding by the rest of the community”, and “some act or omission in respect of which legal punishment may be inflicted on the person who is in default whether by acting or omitting to act”. All very legalistic.

But as the article goes on to say (I wish I can quote the writer but the article doesn’t come with that person’s name), the catch in these definitions is that they apply equally to all actions that society will recognise immediately as crimes, like murder and robbing a bank, as well as to “trivialities” like parking too long in a restricted area and spitting on the sidewalk.

What adds to the complication is that we often equate crime with wickedness or sin.

But who is to judge that because a sin in one religion can be a celebratory act in another, like drinking alcohol. Islam forbids it but Jesus turned water into the finest wine at a wedding feast.

As the AHA article notes, “There are many kinds of conduct that most of us would regard as bad, or sinful, that are not prohibited by law, and consequently are not crimes. And there are many other acts that are technically crimes, but are performed every day by perfectly good citizens, either in ignorance of the law or because the law does not fit commonly accepted standards of conduct.”

That Barisan lawmaker said stealing is not a crime, like riding a motorcycle without a helmet is not a crime, unless you get caught, arrested, charged and convicted.

Technically speaking, that’s true, but why does it sound so wrong coming from a person who is called a lawmaker? Someone who is expected to have moral values and defend an upright and just society?

But it would appear that many people have double standards and would justify and rationalise their way out of doing something bad and even criminally wrong.

I came across another article, Why paying bribes to get your child into college is a crime, by law professor Peter J. Henning on the NYTimes. com, which I think is relevant to today’s column.

The article discussed the recent case in the United States involving 33 parents and 13 coaches accused of bribing or submitting false test results to get their children into prestigious universities.

Henning poses the question as to why the parents’ actions are considered a federal crime. His answer: If a university coach or employee takes payment in exchange for improperly admitting a student who is not otherwise qualified, that person violates the US law called “the right to honest services”.

I like that! To me, it means the law recognises the fact that what the parents did – all wealthy people, including two well-known actresses – deprives other students who are more qualified of places in these universities.

Well, in some countries, there can be a state-sanctioned policy called the quota system that allows less qualified people to get ahead of more qualified and deserving ones in the name of affirmative action and the restructuring of society.

Henning believes that people can override any concerns about ethics and morality because such crimes do not have an “obvious victim”.

In this case, the parents would not know the young people whose places were taken by their children and can dismiss the other children’s loss as bad luck. Sounds like how the quota system works too.

That, however, doesn’t lessen the harm done, says Henning.

And that brings me back to our dear lawmaker and his reasoning: It ain’t a crime until you do the time and hey, who’s the victim, man?

Like if the fella goes around without a helmet on a bike, what’s the big deal? He isn’t causing harm to anyone, except possibly to himself should his head get smashed in an accident.

Perhaps that’s why he and his ex-boss feel that there is no crime unless your hand is caught in the cookie jar. I suppose to them, if one steals from a source like a sovereign fund that doesn’t clearly identify the owner, who is but a lot of faceless citizens, then by golly it is easy to justify their reprehensible act. No need to be malu.

Such a mindset exposes the lack of a moral compass in the person, which is surely cause for worry because one cannot help but wonder what other dastardly deeds can be dismissed in such a cavalier way.

That’s why to me AHA’s answer to the question, “Who is a criminal?” is spot-on.

“Is a man a criminal if he has violated a criminal law but has not been caught at it? Many people would argue that only the individual who has been convicted of breaking the law should be called a criminal.

“But that is just as absurd as to argue that the man who has no birth certificate has therefore never been born. In convicting a criminal, or registering a birth, the state simply certifies to something that has already happened. It is committing a crime, not being convicted of it, which makes an individual a criminal.”