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ShareCities have a way of becoming centres of crime. The bigger the city, bigger the networks and more organised the crime. Big cities are magnets of both organised and petty crimes.
What makes them so? How should a city- dweller tackle this? What are the proactive ways of managing it? Is there a need to manage crime at all? Should it be managed at the level of the citizens, or should its curtailment be outsourced to the system of policing and the police department at large, like it is today?
Let me explore this and more.
Take a look at the city you live in. Be it Bangalore, a pensioner's paradise of yore; or Mumbai, the country's financial capital, which was hitherto considered a safe city for single women. Every city has a problem of its own.
IT-city Bangalore has had a spate of murders of late -- murder of senior citizens living on their own, and of complete families as well. Rape is reasonably common, though much of it goes unreported, a national phenomena. Robberies are common. Petty theft of every kind is very, very common. And vandalism of personal property is the new trend.
Cities morph. From being a quiet pensioner's paradise to a dangerous city to live in for those who flaunt their wealth. Look at Mumbai, single women loved it until a spate of crimes were committedagainst them. Times change, people change and the crime profile of a city changes as well.Crime has a hierarchy.
Murder then, is the most foul of them all. Taking the life of another must surely be the most gruesome. And then there is rape. Next in pecking order. Some say it's worse than murder. But then, that is a matter of perception. And then there is the big robbery, where whole houses are looted. Petty robbery comes next. Over a period of six months, maid-servants are known to have walked off with bed-sheets, vases, silver spoons and bottles of Scotch from the homes of the well-heeled.
Has a driver walked off with a fewlitresof petrol from your tank to feed his family? And has a driver ever driven off with the whole of your car? Has anybody vandalised any of your belongings in anger? Has someone scratched your car just because you refused to give Diwali 'bakshish', or gave too little of it?
Has any of this happened to you? If not, is it likely to happen to you?
Though many of us would say shubh-shubh bolo, there are chances of it happening. The writing is on the wall of big city dwelling.
I believe all crime is a manifestation of anger in the mind and heart of the perpetrator, who doesn't know how to handle it.
A murder could be an act of anger that went a bit too far, and a small act of vandalism could be a way of venting it. The rape of a person, too, could be an act of frustration and aggression stemming from latent anger.
And if that is to be true, must we as a city invest in anger management? In managing the collective anger of a city as well as individual and group anger of clusters of people who make for a big city? Is there a role that each of us can play in mollifying this anger? Let me start by being benign. Some say that being benign is being naive. But I'm not that cynical.
Your driver actually stole petrol from your car because he wasn't paid well enough. He has a family of five and can't manage with the Rs5000 you pay. And someone vandalised a home because the man was rude and insulted someone at work. And someone killed someone because a land settlement case was going on and on, and nobody agreed to a fair compromise. And someone raped someone because someone sacked someone.
All terrible reasons for committing a crime. But they are all real reasons as well. The quick point I wish to make is for us to really think and insource the reasons of crime, rather than outsource it to the police, the state mechanism or the government at large. The police comes in after the crime is done.
I do believe that we, as citizens of a city, have an obligation to really think it all up, and look at ways and means to manage frustration and crime, and to keep the safety-valve intact.
I do know this is a controversial point. Stay with it, however. I believe we are responsible for the crime we beget. As a society and its constituents become sensitive and oppressed equally with what they have and what they don't, and what they see all around, it is important to sit back, rationalise and act. Crime management really amounts to anger management. And anger management is what each one of us needs to contribute towards.
This is not something we can outsource to the police. Let's think this out.
