WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 2024
Ibonio D’Souza
Discipline is essentially inner or personal, which is a method of training and conditioning your mind, heart and body for controlling your behaviour. One has to be disciplined not only in personal matters but also in a society. Man is a social animal and that is why he has to obey the rules and orders of a society. Thus laws are very essential to control people’s behaviour and put limits on them so that everyone can live together in harmony. Anyone disobeying these rules is Iiable for punishment so that the perverse act is not repeated. However, if the punishment is enough for the offender to make him obey the laws or not cannot be said for sure.
The purpose of law is to maintain general peace. Thus laws are formulated keeping in mind the best interests of the society. This puts a lot of responsibility on the individual to obey these laws. Whether laws are followed or not is a very personal choice. Although the procedure of punishing the offenders is made in order to correct them and stop them from committing the offence again, it is not a guarantee that this system would correct the offender forever. Once the punishment is over, the offender will again commit the offence. The question here is about responsibility. Only a person who understands his responsibility would refrain from committing crimes. On the other hand, someone who is not responsible and does not have the morals and principles that make him a social person would commit the crime repeatedly. This will happen unless the nature of the offender changes.
It would be incorrect on the part of authorities to think that laws are enough to bring in peace. Laws are only a demarcation of a person’s behaviour. Nevertheless, there is no way to demarcate a person’s mind. Before the crime is actually committed, it is already committed in the mind of the offender. Thinking of doing an unlawful thing is as good as doing it. We can stop the actions once or twice. It is possible that the offender is punished by law sometimes. However, this does not eradicate crime from the society. This is because it exists in the mind of the offenders. Thus, to bring an end to crime and offence, the mind has to be reformed and conditioned.
Punishment cannot bring reform, neither can laws of the society. For the society to be free of crime, the criminals need to be given more training rather than physical punishment. With moral training, the person is taught to lead a clean and healthy moral life. He would realize the importance of principles and how to lead his life according to these principles. Not only does this bring back order into his life, but he would also understand how one must live with others in a society. Thus, the person would start respecting social rules and regulations which would make him a responsible citizen.
Laws are only good enough to put a limit or restriction. However, this does not check the offence from being committed because the mind and heart of a person cannot be bound by laws and regulations. For a society free of crime, we must have a society of people with good morals, minds and hearts.
