Killer Litter - Letter to SFD 3 August 2000

Modern judicial systems have four main objectives - retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation. In the practical operation of a system of sentencing, these objectives often come into conflict; since criminology seems unlikely to ever provide the information on which to base a scientific choice between the different objectives of punishment, the giving of priority to each objective rests on the moral principles of the society.

The laws of Singapore are often criticised for being overly harsh and draconian. The death sentence is barbaric; caning is torture, cruel and unusual punishment; the ban on chewing gum is absurd beyond words; and so on. But insofar as these punishments are applied to the individual who commits the offence, there is a case to be made for them that Singapore places great importance on the deterrence and incapacitation values of a punishment and the resulting reduced crime rates. Our sentencing system draws some flak, but it also has its fair share of praise and admirers.

The eviction of tenants from their flats as a punishment for having a convicted killer-litter offender in their midst is touted as a decisive solution to the anti-social menace and a natural extension of the deterrence principle that Singapore favours so much. However, it is necessary to point out that this collective punishment violates a fundamental, invisible (because it is often assumed and just as often forgotten) principle of law: justice, the moral imposition of penalty or recompense upon those, and only upon those, who have caused unwarranted or significant injury to others.

Let not undue sympathy be lavished upon the killer-litter offender, nor due sympathy be with-held from the victims, an oft-made criticism of the American legal system and media circus. It is, however, a well-established axiom of law, of justice, and of humanity that as far as possible the innocent should not be punished, either wittingly or unwittingly, for the crimes of the guilty. This principle is enshrined in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention for the protection of civillian persons in times of war. The existence of the article is, at least, an acknowledgement of the ideal of adherence to the principle of protecting the innocent even under the stresses and brutality of war; how much greater the requisite protection of the innocent in peace-time!

Yet here we have our elected government and our main English-language broad-sheet deliberately enacting, and promoting, the use of a brutal, ruthless form of collective punishment to ensure conformance to safety standards. Yes, the objective is noble: the protection of the innocent from unwarranted injury. But doing so by trampling over the rights of other innocents makes a mockery of the objective. The maxim that "the ends justify the means" has been the key to countless houses of unspeakable horror.

On the issue of collective responsibility for killer litter, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said that "the onus was on the family to educate its members not to throw things out of the window." Ms Leong Ching, in "Eviction a must for killer-litter bugs" (18 July 2000), notes that "it is unrealistic to expect town councils and the HDB to patrol each and every block." Allow me to paraphrase her by noting that it is equally unrealistic to expect the tenants of any particular flat to stay at home all day long and keep an eye on the other tenants.

The logic of repossessing the flats of convicted killer-litter offenders suggests that we extend the system of collective punishment to other areas of the law, to avoid a jarring inconsistency in a country that prides itself on its orderliness and efficiency. How about granting the death sentence to the family members of convicted murderers and drug smuggling, and caning plus lengthy imprisonments to family members of convicted rapists? After all, is not the onus on the family to educate its members on the value of life, the harm caused by the drug trade and the immorality of selfishly and violently satiating one's lusts?

Better still, appoint for each citizen a permanent "buddy", and have each pair of "buddies" be collectively culpable for any offence commited by either of them. The logic holds if and only if collective responsibilty was an untegrated, ubiquitous feature of our judicial system, and we might very well have a drastically reduced crime rate. Singapore would then be a fine place to live, certainly, if your concept of a fine place to live involves a populace of nervous, fearful, obsessive-compulsive vigilantes.

The eviction of tenants from a flat because of the crime of one member repudiates a vital legal principle, violates humanitarian principles, ignores compassion, and baffles the reason. There are many weapons in the government's arsenal to combat terrorism. Collective punishment and the fear and resentment it breeds in the hearts of the citizens is the most reprehensible.

Joseph Wong