The fight against crime

The mundane way I spend my holiday does something good. It makes me think about things that I normally wouldn't give a damn; it makes me more aware of my surroundings, more sensitive to how people interact and get along with one another in a planet with limited source of luxury.

As I was on my way back from Macquarie Shopping Centre with lots of groceries for my survival for this coming week, I was struck by the question of why people commit crime. To be blunt, why do robbers rob and rapists rape? By the way I quoted these two examples because robberies and rape cases are the most common crime in Malaysia. Many would blame money and sex as the ultimate motivation. Well, true enough, but what makes money and sex so sought after?

Wealth promises access to luxury items, sex gives satisfaction. In the animals' world, food and sex move the entire ecosystem. Animals hunt and kill the weak. Animals mate when their hormones instruct them to do so. If we put aside our ego for being the species that undergo the most evolution (homo sapien we are), how much different is human being from other less evolved creatures?

We are different because we are guided by a set of non-natural rules called moral principles. We define what is right and what is wrong, based not on our natural instinct but the egalitarian wish to create a world of harmony, peace and fairness different from the world of beasts. Robbery is wrong because it is against the rule of ownership, which is obviously non-existent in the animals' world. Have you ever seen a stronger fox give in to a weaker fox who hunted down a rabbit? Even though the stronger fox did not do the hunting, by sheer force it gets to enjoy the result of others' labour. Robberies are motivated by the same urge to want things that do not belong to us.

Similarly, why do rape, incest, paedophilia happen? In the world of animal, the males will search for females during the mating season, and being guided by hormone they would have sex as a means for reproduction. Sex is natural and created by God to ensure the continuity of the species' survivalship. In the human's world, certain behaviours in the animal kingdom are unacceptable because they are defined as 'morally wrong'. Sex without consent is considered rape, sex with a family member is considered incest, sex with an underaged child is considered paedophilia. Are the aforementioned behaviours absent in the beast's world? No.

Crime happened as human relapse to animal's behaviour, that is, when human choose to follow their natural instinct (controlled by hormones) rather than the artificial moral principles. Animals act based on natural instincts, because they can't do more than that. There is no right or wrong, only survivalship matters. But we, the most evolved species, care more than survival. We want everyone to follow a certain code of conduct to ensure peace and equity. Our brains have developed to the extent that we care about the greater good of the entire human race, not just our individual gratification. And to achieve this, we enact law to impose punishment on its infringement, as an incentive for ourselves to go against our natural (perhaps beasty) instincts.

Criminal activities are proofs to the incomplete evolution of human being. We are still evolving for the better, moving towards the eventual ideality that promises a world where everyone will live peacefully and happily together, where no one will starve and suffer, where everyone acts according to his/her will as long as it is not against the law. The war against crime is the war against ourselves - our own tendency to act like animals for which rules and regulations do not prevail.