adminThe most recent such incident involved an elderly man who was publicly murdered by an obviously hopelessly socially useless ruffian in the outskirts of the city of Bulawayo.
Elsewhere another rapscallion who had tried and failed to kill his mother subsequently hanged himself. Many other cases of a similar type were reported by various print media throughout 2012. They included the murder of young children.
Causes of crime are many and varied. They range from frustration to intoxication. Among them in a long list we find greed and, of course, sheer laziness and jealousy.
Frustration simply means discontentment caused by an inability to achieve one’s desire. In rape cases it means failure to achieve one’s sexual wishes.
Intoxication is caused by either alcoholic beverages or drugs or by the consumption of both.
Many cases of murder are committed by people whose brains are overwhelmed by potable intoxicants such as beer, wines, illicit beverages including tototo, kachasu, samdenyula, kill-me quick and the well known range of spirituous drinks.
Drugs are either smoked, taken orally in the form of tablets, or inhaled as is the case with glue and deodorants. Most of these are habit forming.
The most common drug grown in Zimbabwe is dagga (mbanje), a hemp used as a narcotic, by which is meant a substance that induces insensibility, sleep, stupor or drowsiness. Cases of madness and violent behaviour caused by the consumption of dagga (mbanje) are quite common.
In Zimbabwe the consumption of mbanje has resulted in a large number of the consumers becoming irreversible guttersnipes (izibhonda). Virtually every Zimbabwean town has its own zibhondas all of whom are really more pitiable than embarrassing.
Most of these urban zibhondas have become so mentally ruined and physically worn out that they cannot kill a normal human being in sober circumstances, another sibhonda, yes, they can commit that crime.
That apart, we are actually focusing our discussion on the weird crime against elderly people by younger ones, usually men. We are saying that such crime is a result of intoxication caused by the consumption of mainly drugs and/or alcoholic beverages.
The Zimbabwean police (ZRP) have intercepted and seized several (if not many) sack-loads of dagga on public transport from some parts of Manicaland and even Mashonaland.
The buses would be destined for Bulawayo or neighbouring Botswana. Those responsible have been duly dealt with according to the law of the country.
The jail terms imposed have been light if we compare the massive harm a sackful of mbanje would do to a community. The harm would not be just to the mbanje consumer but also to those whose lives would be negatively affected or destroyed by the intoxicated consumer.
The laws of Zimbabwe should be revised so that people convicted of drug peddling or abuse are actually trained in producing food crops, while they are in prison.
The years spent in jail by a convicted person should be a fruitful period instead of being regarded as merely corrective and punitive. With regard to drug convicts, their time in prison should be practically educative.
The hard labour to which they are sentenced should be practically relevant to their future outside prison, having turned them into truly productive individuals in terms of Zimbabwe’s staple food crops.
This suggestion may require the modification or revision of some of the relevant laws; or the enactment of new ones altogether. It is the duty of every intelligent MP to go through the existing anti-drug laws with a view to changing in order to improve their social and economic effects on Zimbabwe.
Presently, such laws tend to be strictly deterrent through coercion and punishment but do not emphasise the importance of transforming the convicts by means of practical training in productive vocations.
It would appear that to tailor effective anti-drug laws consideration ought to be given to their severity level on the basis of consumers, the distributor and the producer. Much legal severity should characterise the law dealing with the consumer; that dealing with the distributor ought to be more severe than the one applying to the consumer; the one pertaining to the producer has just got to be the most severe of the anti-drug Act.
The law would logically assume that both the producer and the distributor are also drug consumers, meting out punishment against them based of “not less than”’ instead of “not more than” a given number of years principle.
A law that stipulates a maximum number of months or years as a penalty is liable to be manipulated by some of the courts especially these days when corruption is gnawing at the legal and judicial fabric of many nations.
If a law says a court may or should sentence a felon to a prison term of “not more than” X number of months or years, a magistrate or judge can pass a ridiculously low sentence because of whatever factor (corruption not excluded).
If, however, the law stipulates the felon should be sentenced to “not less than” X number of years, the court may give him or her the very least, a period the law-makers would have seen or found to be sufficiently long enough to be both deterrent and rehabilitative.
In a case of murder, the question of recompense or redress would be dealt with through the usual civil court process.
Let us go back to drug production and abuse and see how and when Zimbabwe’s social systems can be used to act lest reduce the trend. Since it is better to mould rather than to correct a character, particularly that of a human being, it is, therefore, advisable to explain the horrible drug effects on human beings to the very young primary school children.
That would be done first from the elementary physiological basis, explaining to the children how drugs diversely affect the health of some of our bodies’ organs. Incidentally, by drugs we are referring not only to dagga, glue, deodorants, but also to alcoholic drinks and, of course, to marijuana, cocaine and any other substance that has a habit forming, narcotic effect when consumed in excess.
Nurses or medical doctors could give well prepared lessons either to school-teachers who would thereafter pass the knowledge on the children, or they could lecture to the school children directly, whichever is deemed more appropriate.
Other lecturers could deal with the negative social effects of drug consumption. Responsible cultural leaders such as pastors could be very happy to handle this aspect of this issue. Their message would be that drug consumption is not a social strength but a weakness.
The third and final part of these lectures would be the legal consequences of drug consumption. This could be ably handled by either the police or by some members of the judiciary.
The effects of such a campaign could be assessed after every five or 10 years. It is the opinion of this writer that after about generation (about 30 to 33 years) Zimbabwe could record a markedly less incidence of violent crime, including the rape of babies and young children.
Councillors could handle such campaigns in their respective wards to conscientise adults about dangers of drug consumption.
The work of urban and rural district councilors should cover the ward’s social, economic, cultural and political development. A conscientious councillor keeps a record of various types of occurrences in his or her ward. These happenings range from illegal abortions to suicides.
It is councillor’s duty to monitor the social welfare of his or her ward. These happenings range from illegal abortions to suicides.
It is the councillor’s duty to monitor the social welfare of his or her ward. In the rural areas the councilor could liaise closely with t he village head, the headman and the chief to educate the people about the dangers of drug abuse.
Councillors should have records of all guttersnipes in their respective wards and see whether their numbers re decreasing or increasing. Should the number be seen to be or the rise, the causes should be identified. If it is drug consumption, the councillor should immediately involve the relevant law enforcement forces. The ZRP. This would be a part of nation building.
Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu is a Bulawayo-based retired journalist. He can be contacted on cell 0734328136 or through email [email protected]
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