YOURSAY | Punishment should fit the crime, no matter who

YOURSAY | ‘Real criminals have their sentences reduced while the poor go to jail.’

Ex-DPP: Community service better than jail for man who stole sardines

Senior citizen lands in jail for stealing sardines, Nescafe

Vijay47: If we want to be realistic about this case, the accused had indeed stolen the items in question and had pleaded guilty. 

If an offence has been committed, the law must take its course and he has to be punished accordingly. The one-month jail sentence could even be considered light.  

Up to this stage, everyone would agree with this summary. Yet all of us are rooting for senior citizen Jamaluddin Yusof, 64.

We cannot shake off this feeling that while he did break the law, that very law had done him in. 

We have all lost faith in the justice system that far from being blind, seems so selective and biased towards the rich, high, and mighty. 

Our immediate furious and frustrating reaction is to consider the case of this poor man and former prime minister, Najib Abdul Razak. And our fury knows no bounds.  

That simple man-in-the-street widower stole things that might be worth a total of about RM200 while convicted criminal Najib made off with millions!

Najib’s punishment? A gentle rap on the knuckles with a light feather and he continues to preen about in his Armanis like a peacock.

Najib’s pardon appeal was so easily able to jump the endless queue and he now even has the nerve to ask for house arrest, something neither mentioned in our Constitution nor all our thick volumes of law.

This is what gives us this terrible, angry pain in our chest.  

Jamaluddin must be punished, no doubt about that, unless we want to wander further into that world of lawlessness that we seem to have already entered.  

Looking at the bigger picture, where is your so-called “mercy and compassion”, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim?

Anonymous9483: Only Pakatan Harapan supporters fall for all this talk about a compassionate Madani.

In a short 17 months under Anwar and his cohorts, our country has never been worse.  

Old Pak Cik is still jailed for stealing food, race relations worsening with races distrusting each other, the economy is in the doldrums, absolutely no reform as promised and Bossku seemingly enjoying the time of his life in prison.

Thank you Harapan supporters for showing us that it was possible to have a worse government than the previous ones.

BlueFish0451: The whole country is going to the dogs. Corruption and stealing are rampant. Businesses are finding it difficult to operate with the level of stealing in the country.  

Please put it from the right perspective. The sentence of one month in jail is not excessive and it is needed to deter crimes.

It is the light sentences meted out to those involved in mega-scandals that make the punishment for much lesser crimes look heavy.

In a country marred by scandals and thefts, only a death sentence similar to Vietnam and China could save the country.

Throwing thieves in jail should be the minimum we expect.

P Dev Anand Pillai: It only goes to show how hapless our society has become of late. 

We seem to be arguing about the possibility of house arrest for the big lords who have been proven to be great looters of the public coffers by their various tactics and modus operandi but at the same time, when we have the poor stealing to feed their families, the law comes down hard on them and without any mercy.

Have those who are supposed to lead stopped to analyse where they have gone wrong when it comes to policy decisions of poverty eradication?

There seems to be news of all sorts of allocations but the poor don’t seem to be receiving anything or any help to alleviate them from their state of affairs. 

Is the education system corresponding or are we cheating ourselves by giving our young people colourful certificates which are worthless in the job market?

We were once a nation that was the envy of its neighbours but now we are in decline due to our acceptance of a corrupt culture which has simply seeped too deep into the veins of the people.

Let us hope that the have-nots will stand up and seek social justice, good governance, transparency and accountability and be cowed when they receive a colourful envelope with some money in it!

YellowCat1156: A personal plea to storekeepers. This is not the first time something like this has happened and been reported in the media.

I sincerely hope that you will exercise some form of discretion. You can decide to apprehend the criminal, take back all he stole, and warn him not to come back.

Use the threat of making a police report if the perpetrator does it a second time.  

Why am I suggesting this? Because there is no true justice in this country.

ScarletViper9930: Our justice system has gone upside down.

Real criminals have their sentences reduced and the poor who stole what they need have to go to jail. Lawbreakers are roaming free while foolish but harmless jokers land in jail.

This is the historic and “outstanding contribution” of the Madani government.

Appum: It's who you know that might help you to get pardoned no matter how serious your crime.

Poor man. If he is just fined five times the stolen amount, we can crowdfund him. After all, he is just like one of us... a lesser being.

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