Crime deterrence
THE news last week that incoming Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña is really serious with his election campaign rhetoric to give a 150,000 reward to anyone who kills a criminal could indeed send chills to lawless elements.
At the same time, the monetary incentive which, Osmeña said, is “limited to police operating in the line of duty or civilians with legal justification” to shoot down criminals, has alarmed human rights advocates who strongly believe the offer is prone to abuses and will encourage vigilante killings.
Osmeña started to make good his campaign pronouncement last Thursday when he handed over reward money to PO3 Julius Regis who had shot on May 17 two suspects who had just robbed jeep passengers near Ayala Center in Cebu City.
“Patay, singkwenta. Kon dili, singko. Pero tungod kay off duty ka, atong doblehon. Dies. Duha sila, bale bente, ha. (Dead, 150,000. If not, 15,000. But since you were off-duty, let’s double it-110,000. They were two, so it’s 120,000.) Congratulations,” Osmeña was quoted as telling the policeman.
Noting that only 120,000 was given because the alleged robbers were not killed, the GMA news report added “the incoming mayor also said that if Regis had committed to improve his shooting skills, he would have been given 1100,000 reward.”
Another news report said the Commission on Human Rights in Central Visayas finds Osmeña’s scheme alarming. It added that according to Phelim Kine, deputy director at the Asia Division of Human Rights Watch, Osmeña “has a troubling history of exhorting summary killings of criminal suspects.” It cited Osmeña telling police in 2005: “Go ahead, pull the trigger. As mayor, my warning to anybody doing a crime is I will see to it that you’ll be dead on the spot.”
The issue of killing criminals — whether extrajudicial or sanctioned by law — has heated up anew as the nation awaits the formal turnover of the presidency to the tough-talking Mayor Rodrigo Duterte who had captivated the electorate with his promise to eradicate crime and proliferation of illegal drugs nationwide within three to six months.
Duterte’s tough stance on crime has seemingly inspired other local leaders, aside from Osmeña, to resort to unconventional measures to rid their areas of criminality. Mayor Antonio Halili of Tanauan, Batangas, for instance, has stepped up his campaign to shame confessed drug pushers and other crime suspects by parading them along the streets of his town.
The need for unconventional ways to curb criminality can be seen as an indictment of the seeming inefficiency of our criminal justice system and failure of government to fulfill its fundamental task of ensuring the safety of citizens against those who continue their criminal rampage with wanton impunity.
“That sense of impunity can only come from a conviction that they can easily get away with their heinous deed — that the police will be ineffective, as usual, in going after them, that the public will lose interest in crying murder after a couple of weeks, and that even if they are corralled, the corrupt, slowpoke justice system ensures that their case will drag on for years, until the victims’ families lose all motivation and hope in pursuing the case,” an editorial put it succinctly some time ago.
Many believe that, in general, the current state of our criminal justice system is obviously incapable of serving as a crime deterrent. Thus, the need for drastic measures that Duterte espouses. And many of the measures he plans to implement — like the liquor ban on certain hours and the curfew on minors with their parents liable for violations — could be highly effective in maintaining peace and order.
Duterte’s plan for police to arrest parents of children loitering beyond 10 p.m. without adult supervision can work as a crime deterrent just like in Mandaluyong City where Ordinance No. 538 or the Code of Parental Responsibility has been in effect since March 2014. Mandaluyong police recorded 256 crimes in 2013 involving children, from simple mischief to street rioting and robbery, but the number dropped to 77 in 2014 and 73 in 2015.
But can death penalty really deter criminals? Many studies here and abroad have shown capital punishment does not serve as a crime deterrent, unlike the certainty of apprehension and swiftness of conviction and imprisonment.
To bring about certainty and swiftness of conviction, there must be efficiency in all aspects of the criminal justice system — reporting the crime, gathering evidence, identifying perpetrators through a no-nonsense investigation that also elicits valuable information from the community, arresting and prosecuting suspects, and conducting swift and fair trial in court until justice is served and the guilty are sentenced to languish in jail.
The fight against illegal drugs can be won with a right strategy pursued relentlessly. When I was Interior Secretary and concurrent chairman of National Peace and Order Council and Dangerous Drugs Board, I set in place a system for identification of suspected drug dealers down to the barangay level.
Anti-Drug Abuse Councils were activated at the barangay, municipal, city and provincial levels, generating grassroots intelligence leading to the highest number of arrests and cases filed against drug pushers, distributors and manufacturers, and most number of shabu labs raided and dismantled.
I also made sure that policemen attended hearings of drug-related cases lest they face administrative charges. Big cases were monitored together with the Justice Department to ensure success in prosecution because we knew that if the legal process becomes flawed, when cases are “fixed” along the way, and authorities fail in their job, the drug lords and pushers would never be deterred. And I’m sure the incoming Duterte administration knows that, too.