Hugo Maurice Julian Claus, a noted Belgian author, poet, playwright, painter and film director, once said, “I am a person who is unhappy with things as they stand. We cannot accept the world as it is. Each day we should wake up foaming at the mouth because of the injustice of things.” The urban day-time petty crimes in general, crime against women and children in particular, incidents of street violence and road rage, civic offences etc may be brought down through citizen involvement.
looking from a different perspective than policing or law enforcement, which itself constitutes the most important aspect in crime prevention and control, or any wrong or socially unaccepted behaviour in public view, raising the consciousness of the citizens through sustained education and creating an enabling atmosphere should be an informed public policy. This becomes more important not only in the context of limitation of State intervention per se, but for the impossibility of policing every nook and corner of the urban landscape or the burgeoning population.
There are instances of citizen police experimented in some metros, albeit with limited success. The idea being suggested here is different — it is about building the moral commitment and capacity of the citizenry to try and stop offences in public. lest we misunderstand, this is also different from vigilantes, who have over the years conveyed a negative image of themselves by taking the law into their own hands.
While trying to build a framework, an illustration is made out, which may look little over-simplistic but may help nevertheless. Grave crimes against women for example, from wife bashing to bride burning to rape, are not likely to be committed in public places, at least during the day time because there are many people around.
So apparently the presence of people becomes a deterrent against certain offences. But if we analyse closely, it’s really because there is an assurance of intervention to stop the commission of the intended crime by those present around. How successful is that may be debatable but perception does matter and potential offenders are often deterred by such perception. If this non-acceptance by community of certain category of offences by cognition and social responsibility is expanded to include various other offences, such incidence is likely to go down.
We may try to reverse the silence of the majority to prevent the violence by few. The general trend in society of not intervening when petty offences take place in the markets, trains, buses, theatres, parks or any public places lead to graver offences being committed. The social apathy creates environment not conducive to safe living.
The attitude of a bystander or a mute witness is rampant. There are studies to explain why bystanders remain silent or do not intervene while socially unacceptable things happen in front of their eyes.
To sum up, the bystander is not sure about the nature of offence or his own role or waits to be guided by the response of ‘others’ in the crowd. He is conditioned by various factors, including up-bringing, education, felt need, protecting self from likely harm and the presence or absence of empathy in relation to strangers.
Since we have now some idea of attitude and positioning of persons in a given situation where intervention would have saved the life, property or honour of another person, we may move further for determining factors which could happen in creating such favorable environment.
The idea to help anybody in distress or in trouble has to be inculcated from the very beginning. This help has to extend not only to friends and family but even to strangers in difficulty. Thus, coming forward to the aid of victim of a crime has to be a learnt convention of a citizen, acquired through rigorous education from an early age. It would have to be emphasised that ethically it is incumbent upon him to intervene in such situation. It may be stated that the persons before intervening may take stock of the situation and take support of bystanders so as to secure himself.
Additionally, there may be civic laws enacted — on the lines of those done in Quebec, Brazil and UAS — mandating such initiatives by citizens and for protecting them from harassment arising from such interventions. This becomes important in emergency situations where a human life can be saved through intervention of bystanders. The urban life will become safer with spirited persons coming forward to help and not remaining silent spectators.
We may conclude by quoting from Derrick A Bell’s Ethical Ambition: living a life of Meaning & Worth, “Courage is a decision you make to act in a way that works through your own fear for the greater good as opposed to pure self-interest. Courage means putting at risk your immediate self-interest for what you believe is right’’.