Just a few months ago I’ve managed to experience the frustration dealing with polices, when my mobile was stolen at work almost under broad daylight. With help from my colleagues I was able to find out who did it and forwarded the info to the police. The police did not fail me: after a few brief conversations over the phone and they seem to have vanished into thin air #1, precisely what I’ve been expecting. While the chance of recovering it would be slim regardless of police involvement, one could not help wondering what would be like if there are tougher sentencing in place?

Most of us would agree tough sentencing would deter common crimes and are willing to push it as far as to lock up anyone behind bars #2 for the most trivial crime. However we’re also confronted with the long term consequences by incarcerating a good proportion of the population.

Provided tougher sentencing leads to a heavier financial burden in terms of new facilities and increased overhead costs for staffs, the correctional institutions will actively seek to alleviate the burden by taking more jobs into the prison, which will then end up eroding manual jobs on the labour market and pushing more people into criminal activities.

The prison itself also serves as an institution to further “educate” criminals (so much for life-long education), therefore by locking up shoplifters behind bars we could very well be providing the skills to prepare them for bank robbery.

The essence in crime fighting lies in preventing it before the actual crime takes place, instead of tougher punishment to deter criminals. We should devote more focus on correction rather then punishment, more resource should have been poured into social work, counseling and communities. While crime being one of the main debate grounds in the upcoming New Zealand General election, votes should consider the fact that seemingly straight-forward approach may carry sequences that may have not been informed by those who propose it. It would be a shame for us to commit the same mistake as the ones we considered wrong – by miscalculating the consequences of our own misdeeds.

p.s. anyone selling first-gen iphone? leave me a message.

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This is how cats trains their biceps

* On a side note, there are two versions of translation to the name "New Zealand" in Chinese, one being the complete transliteration ("Niu-Zeelan"), the other being half literal, half transliteration ("Shin-Zeelan"). Provided that the "old zealand" (the Dutch province Zeeland) is less known then the newer one (hurray), there really isn't much point making distinction by calling it "Shin-Zeelan".