Last week, Prime Minister Keith Rowley issued a statement highlighting his concern about crime, which ended: "I want to appeal to all those young persons who might be influenced by or attracted to violent criminal activity to consider the frequency with which such activities end in grief not only for their families but for the wider national community, to reflect on alternatives which would provide more acceptable outcomes to their valuable lives."
Now this final paragraph is not only peculiar in itself, but also reveals a religious mindset–ie, the perspective that preaching can change behaviour. But that premise is mistaken on two grounds: first, people are generally persuaded only by arguments which fit their biases or which give them an advantage; secondly, in its assumption that criminals consider their acts to be wrong. In their book Virtuous Violence, anthropologist Alan Page Fiske and moral psychologist Tage Shakti Rai write:
"When people hurt or kill someone, they usually do so because they feel they ought to: they feel it is morally right and even obligatory to be violent."
On this basis, appealing to murderers' moral obligations is ineffectual, not because killers have no moral sensibility, but because they consider murder and other violence to be morally justified.
Now you might think this proves that murderers, by definition, do not know the difference between right and wrong. But, if this is so, then most people also cannot distinguish between right and wrong.
Consider this: nearly all of us know someone who, in our view, has wronged us. The wrong may have been small or large, but we almost always have a negative view of that individual–we see them as spiteful, or vicious, or bigoted, or hypocritical, or plain evil. Yet the individual in question almost certainly does not think of themselves that way and, if confronted with the wrong they did you, would probably have some justification for it. From your perspective, however, any such justification would itself be fallacious and, indeed, further proof of the individual's spiteful/bigoted/hypocritical/evil nature.
But now, reverse this thought experiment: there are surely people in your circle who think that you have wronged them in some way. But you do not consider yourself a bad person and, if tasked with that particular act, you would also have some justification for it. And, in the unlikely event that you do admit that you were in the wrong, you would still not consider that one act to define your character.
Even so, you might believe that murder, which is considered the most heinous of acts, is hardly subject to the same premise. But most people do not make moral decisions through ethical reasoning, but by moral intuitions which are shaped by self-interest and cultural norms.
Fiske and Rai write: "It is rare for a murder to be merely an expedient means to an asocial material end. Rather, most murders are embedded in and morally motivated by social relationships." The ultimate aim of morality is to regulate social relationships, and violence is one instrument to achieve this end. This perspective of morality helps explain why societies with high levels of religiosity always have high levels of violence and corruption. It even explains why religious groups want to keep their right to marry 12-and 14-year-old girls–note that their arguments are premised on preserving social order.
Even murder related to the drug trade is often caused by the need to regulate relationships and not, as you might assume, by rivalry or one party cheating the other. "In fact, many occur when one party 'disses' the other," Fiske and Rai write.
In his book Narconomics, journalist Tom Wainwright confirms this, noting that "Drugs and violence go hand in hand because the use of force, or at least the threat of it, is the only way the drug cartels have of enforcing contracts (yet) on the whole the drug importers tend to do their best to avoid violence." Only when there is evidence that someone has stolen from the cartel or betrayed it is violence used. Indeed, Wainwright argues, because of the difficulty of getting new employees, cartels might actually be more forgiving of mistakes than legitimate businesses.
This is why Dr Rowley's moral appeal–for criminals to consider the consequences of their actions–is meaningless: the criminals already consider their actions to be morally justified.
Fiskae and Rai write:
"If virtuous violence theory is valid, then to reduce violence we will have to do more than provide economic or material incentives, and we have to do more than impose punishment. It will not be enough to minimise frustration, foster self-control, humanise victims, or reinforce moral reasoning."
They cite the work of American criminologist David M Kennedy, who uses the following steps to reduce gang violence:
(1) Meeting with influential local leaders
(2) Speaking for the community
(3) Publicly telling the main perpetrators that killing is intolerable
(4) Confronting killers with victims' families.
"Swift and certain legal sanctions are used alongside these meetings, but are insufficient by themselves: family members and respected community leaders must clearly and forcefully state that violence is WRONG," write Fiske and Rai.
Kennedy's approach would need considerable adaptation to work in Trinidad. But the key point is this: as long as killers consider their acts morally right, murders in this place will continue.
Kevin Baldeosingh is a professional writer, author of three novels, and co-author of a history textbook.
