Believe you me, I cried bloody murder and have not only thrown the book, but also the bookshelf, at the killer of Bobby the boxer. Bobby was the unfortunate casualty of Singapore's most publicized incident of pet rage. Garcia, the perpetrator, was walking his own dog when Bobby's owner had failed to restrain Bobby, who gingerly provided some unsolicited attention to Garcia's dog. Presumably, there ensued a pet-fight and a human altercation. Bobby's owner apologized and the combatants walked away, however, in an inexplicable act of pet rage, Garcia reappeared and kicked Bobby. Bobby died on the way to the vet. Garcia was sentenced to three months jail and ordered to pay S$1300 restitution to the owner. The Chief Justice quashed the jail sentence and imposed a fine instead but not until after Garcia spent a week in jail since he could not afford the bail pending an appeal.
As a former pet owner myself, I am intimate with the agony of witnessing a beloved pet slip the surly bonds of mortality due to some stupid human rashness. Flashback to some 25 years ago, Whitely, our family's lovely white cat (my acumen for names has improved since then) was pregnant and sunning herself at the pavement in front of my ground floor MacPherson Estate flat. A girl was recklessly running through the common corridor slipping on Whitely in the process. My beloved Whitely shrieked, miscarried, and became very ill. She was found dead under the house Kelvinator two days later.
Three months prison for killing a $1300 pet? I would have expected no less from Singapore's law and order system. One that wears its ruthlessness strong and proud like a badge of honor. We studiously cane illegal immigrants & deport them. We righteously jail those who have oral sex without coitus. We nationalistically cane foreign vandals who use indelible ink - that is the fine line that separates buttock skin tearing or not. We convict for capital offenses based on the confessions of the co-accused.
The pedigree of our system of justice, albeit British, was apparently stepfathered from the feared and hated secret police organization, the Kempetai of Singapore's Japanese Occupation. The proof ? None other than Lee Kuan Yew had opined the following in his memoirs:
"The Japanese Military Administration governed by spreading fear. It put up no pretense of civilized behavior. Punishment was so severe that crime was very rare. ... [I] have never believed those who advocate a soft approach to crime and punishment, claiming that punishment does not reduce crime. That was not my experience in Singapore before the war, during the Japanese occupation or subsequently."
Getting into the swing of things, my basic instinct told me that three months prison for Garcia was a symbolic payback to those who killed animals, recklessly or intentionally. Nevertheless, against my worser nature, I was actually quietly relieved to see that Chief Justice Yong Pung How also felt that the punishment had to be commensurate with the crime. Kudos to the Chief for doing the right thing notwithstanding his not infrequent conservative hectoring and grinding father-knows-best admonitions from the bench.
But this canine caper exposes something more as random acts of Singaporeana always appears to, at me at least.
Didn't anyone cringe when Lee Kuan Yew shared with the world that his views on law & system were inspired by a foreign, racist and malevolent wartime occupation force's secret police - hell-bent on terrorizing the local populace - singling the majoirty Chinese for genocide. My father's stories of the infernal howls of pain & death emanating from old YMCA building opposite Cathay Building still haunt me.
To hypothesize, one can perhaps conceive that if the Kempetai was still meting out justice in Singapore, presumably Mr. Garcia would have already been beheaded if it had been the dog of some Japanese officer. Sadly, in such an instance, there is no appeal or enlightened Chief Justice around to revise the sentence.
My point being? Well, there needs to be a rethinking on how one administers crime and punishment in Singapore as we appear to have somewhat gung-ho deputy public prosecutors that seem to have no compunction recommending to lock people up for each and every offense. I am no softy when it comes to punishment even though I strongly believe that punishment really does not deter crime. Nor do I believe that rehabilitating the criminal would deter future crime. Punishment, and a lot of it that gets dished out, merely performs the retributive function in society where its collective sense of outrage is assuaged and soothed. An eye for an eye. We are still a bloodthirsty society and we shall be sated! But must all of our State imposed punishment be so vindictive and retributive? Must all offenses merely be strictly a fine or jail time?
For offenses like animal cruelty or not keeping pets on leashes, wouldn't sentencing the guilty to long hours of work at the animal shelters or the SPCA be better than fining or jail time? Just like the Corrective Work Order has worked in shaming recalcitrant litterbugs, there may be a need to fine-tune the punishment to fit the crime. Jail time should be reserved for those who are a physical and violent threat to society and not dished out willy nilly. I am still for caning, amongst others, molesters, rapists and armed robbers. Jail those who make false statements about rape since the hapless wrongly accused can suffer irreversible buttock tissue laceration upon conviction. Of course, I would only recommend alternative sentencing for first time offenders and for those recalcitrant recidivists, they should feel the wrath of the law.
However, there may be some merit in having sentences of community service to public interest and volunteer societies for the handicapped, elderly or animal shelters for offenders where bodily violence is not involved. I am proposing sentences of at least 50 hours of community service together with a fine would be the humane and more productive system of justice.
Meting out Kempetai-like sentences is like using a sledgehammer to open a kachang putih. One should allow the sentencing judicial officer the discretion to sentence community service and admittedly, these community organizations should set up some clearing house to administer these municipal offenders carry out their community sentences. Perhaps the Ministry of Home Affairs should tie up with the Ministry of Community Development on this score. Also a handful of laws would have to be amended in order to proscribe the permitted penalties for the various offenses.
As for just punitive or heavy fines, an offender would nonchalantly pay the fine as the going tariff for his anti-social behavior. One case in point is the Briton who compounded his offense for outraging the modesty of a waitress only paid a fine and walked away a free man. While jail time may be too harsh, a sentence of fine and community service such offenders forcing them to make the time and expose these offenders to those less fortunate in our society. The State gets its money, the social organization gets another free, helping hand to run errands and the offender may think twice about offending again - making everyone better off. The State not only makes him poorer monetarily but it may better his understanding of Singaporeans around him and will hopefully make him a better person. Best of all, sentencing community service with a fine would be "no pretence to civilized behavior" but rather somewhat enlightened, but also maintain that revenue generation for the State.
John Tessensohn in Osaka, Japan
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