Our strategy against criminality

Title

Creator

Bayion, Jane

Language

English

Source

The Republic Volume I (Issue No.16) 16-31 August 1976

Year

1976

Subject

Crime prevention -- Philippines

Juvenile delinquency -- Philippines

Juvenile delinquency -- Prevention

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

[The social development dimension of any program for crime reduction has to do with (1) identification and dynamic use of factors with high causal significance to crime; (2) the imperatives of institutional restructuring for developmental change; (3) the need to find a workable level of discipline or freedom consistent with a well-ordered but compassionate society; and (4) the innovative and cooperative roles to be played by the welfare, both government and private services, in the criminal justice system.]

Fulltext

14 16-31 August 1976 Viewpoints THE REPUBLIC PAPERS □ Sec. Estefania Aldaba Lim x The social dimensions of crimes THE social development dimension of any program for crime reduction has to do with (1) identification and dynamic use of factors with high causal significance to crime; (2) the imperatives of institutional restructuring for devel opmental change; (3) the need to find a workable level of discipline or freedom consistent with a well-ordered but com passionate society; and (4) the innova tive and cooperative roles to be played by the welfare, both government and private services, in the criminal justice system. Understanding the Young Offender THE area of crime and delinquency is a field I have been deeply interested in for many years, both as a professional psychologist and for many years as an avid student of mental health. This in terest led me to pursue an in-depth re - search which produced the volume en titled Toward Understanding the Fil ipino Juvenile Delinquent completed and published in 1969. The research team assumed that a clear knowledge of the causes or related causes of juvenile de linquency can naturally lead to a bet - ter understanding of how to control and prevent delinquency. For delinquen cy, like other forms of behavior, is re sponsive to psychological temperament al disharmonies, social and economic conditions; as well as to other dominant features of a particular society or sub culture in that society' Keeping this in mind we set out to study the problems of juvenile delinquency at various levels of the personality: the intellectual level, -the emotional temperamental level and the socio-cultural level using the clas sical technique of comparing an experi mental group of juvenile delinquents who The youth: how do you instill discipline? were matchec^with a control group of nondelinquents. In this in-depth study of the Fil ipino juvenile delinquent, my colleagues and I in the research team identified a number of factors with significant cau sal relationship to delinquency includ ing a personality profile characterized by feelings of insecurity, anxiety, infer iority, resentment, suspiciousness, and defensiveness; unfavorable family rela tionships (lack of discipline—overstrict or loose), including broken homes, be ing very young at the time of the separa tion from the mother, being born in an urban setting, having illegitimate par ents, etc. and of course, poverty. Development Emphasis I MENTIONED these factors because the Department of Social Welfare in its program for the disadvantaged youth is now emphasizing preventive, habilitative, and interceptive services as a thrust more in accord with the de velopment efforts of our compassionate society. Preventive Services are those intend ed to curtail the onset of delinquency by identification and dynamic utiliza tion of factors proven to be conducive to wholesome family life and strengthen ing of moral character or by avoiding and offsetting the harmful effects of factors identified to have significant causal relationship to the commission of anti-social acts. When a youth offender is rehabil itated, a vital first step to his normaliza tion is the breaking down of his values, attitudes, and ego-structures which sup port his psychological disorganization and negativistic response to environmen tal and societal conditions. Only after Sec. Lim: ‘‘Emphasis on prevention. ’’ these have been “broken down” can you now rebuild a young offender’s" ego strengths and reestablish reality contact points (hat presage the young offender’s turning point to normalization. The welfare field seeks to provide habilitative measures by consciously bringing about conditions which max imize possibilities and opportunities for the enjoyment of a satisfactory quality of 'life before the formation of undesir able attitudes and values or the habits associated *with anti-social behavior. Interceptive services intervene be tween the young offender and what his life might become as a hardened adult criminal by breaking the cycle or chain of conditions most conducive to more acts of delinquency and hardened crimiminality and preventing his entry in to the penal system. The procedures embodied in PD 603 are essentially in-, terceptive in direction. When the youth offender, despite efforts to prevent, habilitate, or inter cept the occurrence of delinquency nonetheless enters the criminal justice system, then rehabilitative services are provided to restore the youth offender to the fullest possible physical, mental, social, and economic usefulness of which the youth offender is capable within his limitations. Rehabilitation is essentially more complex and difficult than habilitation and prevention, for it involves the dual process of breaking down built-in val ues and negativistic. attitudes and build ing up and restructuring positive values and ego-strengths. We need to also bear in mind that the trauma of having com mitted an essentially violent and unna tural act is now imprinted in the mind of the young offender and must be slowly erased by the healing of mind and body. Restructuring of Institutions HIS brings me to the second point, that is the imperative of restructur ing of institutions for developmental change. A major'obstacle to the success of services for the welfare of children are the attitudes and values notably pre vailing in the home and the school first, and other established institutions which need to be changed before major inroads into crime prevention and control can be achieved. This was clearly evident in the profile of the Filipino juvenile de linquent study. In the words of the Pres ident, “Sa ikauunlad ng bayan, disiplina and kailangan.” Institutional forms of group life, like the family, law enforcement and judicial agencies, and the church con serve values from interactions between and within groups and handed down from the traditions of the past. With socio-economic and environmental changes, the institution in order to sur vive must now give up, modify, or re structure both forms and values to be responsive to evolutionary or revolution ary changes, that is if we are to survive. How does one instill discipline in the people? This is a complex task which the New Society deliberately embarked upon the very first day martial law was declared. The obvious changes in the at titude discipline of the people which we feel and see around us are the results of institutional changes. In a series of pres idential decrees, proclamations, general orders, and letters of instructions these institutional changes are assiduously im plemented by all the institutions con cerned. However, I still see gaps in the chain of measures taken thus far in achieving the personal discipline notably for the young to insure the continuity of insti tutional restructuring for developmental changes. We must fully implement value inculcation, internalization of discipline in the education of the young. No longer through the old fashioned direct pres cription method characterized by “a good manners and right conduct course”; but via a psychodynamic strategy of re educating and educating for values. Every teacher in our educational system must be a viable instrument for value-teaching first and a mathematics, science or lan guage teacher next Looking at the innovative provisions of PD 603 on youth offenders, we find a sharp departure from the punitive— “Save Society from Criminals”-philosophy to a developmental, interceptive approach where every effort is exerted to promote his welfare by the society against which he has committed an act of violence. What about judges who favor “easier ways out” by sentencing a youth offen der for a misdemeanor rather than reha bilitating him for a year or more which takes longer? Is time the dimension to consider? Presidential Decree 603 suspends judgment for those below 21 and wipes out criminal liability even to the destruc tion of records, whether physical or con structive. Can the same judge, the sameJ police officer easily switch from the punitive to the developmental intercep tive approach, merely by observing an age demarcation line? Are those pro posing a return to Article 80 and below sixteen age for youth offenders to avail of suspended sentence really saying: Let us adopt a developmental approach for youth below 16 and inflict adult punish ment for those above 16? The same ob servations are valid for probation at the proposed age levels of 21—24. Levels of Discipline and Freedom N this connection, our societal values reject the extremes of absolute control or enslavement and absolute freedom or anarchy. But if we are to allow discip line and compassionate freedom to co exist, where is the point of workable social control compatible with social freedom? Agreement as to the workable level of control and freedom would again require an examination of ideals and the restructuring of mechanisms of discipline in our new society. Ideally, the optimum level of co operation would' be the phasing out of the criminal justice system because there would be no offenders nor criminals. This is unlikely for the predictable future. Demographic information supplied us by the Bureau of Census and Statistics indicate that of the total population of 41.8 million as of May 1975; 5,461,000 are ages 10-14 and 4,913,000 are ages 15-19; this means that about 10.4 mil lion youth are within the age range of over 9 and below 21 who are covered by the youth offender provisions of PD 603. Using the minimum estimate of three percent of the youth population as the index for potential delinquency, three per cent of the 10.4 million youth would be 312,000. This implies that if we are to meet the needs of the youth we must be prepared to provide staff, facilities, and logistics for the apprehen sion, processing, and rehabilitation after commitment of about 300,000 youth. The implication is that the community must provide habilitative, preventive, and interceptive services for 97% or 10.1 mil lion youth. Are we equipped to do this? Can we afford not to do this? □

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