Restoring Law and Order

by Dr. Phil Stringer (Florida)

"Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth" (Ephesians 4:28).

POVERTY, RACE AND CRIME

Several political polls showed that the number one concern of Americans in 1994 was violent crime. It is important to see that our serious crime problems are not accidental; they stem from the rising rebellion against God.

Real answers to the crime problem are often obscured by the liberals’ emphasis on the idea that poverty and victimization cause crime. If poverty caused crime, why do not all poor people become criminals? If poverty causes crime, why do any rich people become criminals?

Former President Richard Nixon wrote in Beyond Peace (his last book):

We cannot effectively address our nation’s most pervasive social problems unless we face up to the fact that the urban interclass, where the breakdown of the family is worst, is primarily responsible for the plagues of violent crime and drug abuse on the streets of our great cities. Blacks are not the only members of this interclass, but they are the largest proportion of it. In 1992, half of all murder victims in the United States were black. Ninety percent were killed by other blacks. There can be no more dramatic evidence of a culture’s deficiencies of values, discipline, and hope that when it turns against itself, as elements of urban America have in recent years.

The cop out of blaming crime on poverty is morally corrupt and intellectually vacuous. When I was growing up during the Depression, there was far more poverty but far less crime. The difference was that our families and communities enforced civilized standards. We now are reaping the whirlwind stirred up by an age in which the self-appointed cultural elites sneered at the standards that helped people overcome the problems diversity can bring, rather than wallow in them.

Arsonists, looters, muggers, and rioters burn, rob and brutalize not because they are poor but because they are rotten. As Eric Hoffer has noted, "If poverty were indeed the fundamental cause of crime, history would be about almost nothing else, for the vast majority of people in world history have lived in poverty." Today’s vicious young predators show only cold-blooded contempt for their victims. They kill not for food but for a pair of fancy sneakers. They have to be shown firmly, determinedly, and relentlessly that we will not compromise in our defense of civilized standards and values. These are not negotiable.

Successful police chief Rueben Greenberg of Charleston, South Carolina, said in a June, 1994 interview with Rush Limbaugh:

You know, the root causes of crime were supposed to be poverty, unemployment, a poor education, this, that, and the other. Yet 90% of the people with those same characteristics, both blacks and whites, somehow never wound up in the criminal justice system. So I started orienting ourselves toward the protection of those who follow the rules and regulations of society, rather than those who would victimize other people in the community. It is not an excuse to say, "Well I came from the wrong side of town, and I am black, and my great-grandfather was owned by this person." Yeah, that’s true, but these other guys had great-grandfathers who were owned by this person as well, but they are not criminals. They are out working and paying taxes.

The first step in restoring law and order is to recognize that a lack of money and opportunity does not cause crime. A lack of values causes crime. Only by firmly focusing on the real cause can a solution be achieved.

The message of the last 30 years has been that there are not absolutes. The great question of the last 30 years has been, "Who is to say what is right and wrong?" When a young thug robs a stranger on the street, he is, in effect, saying that he does not respect any absolutes. He is saying that no one can say what is right and what is wrong. He has gotten the message.

The government’s promotion of abortion must be stopped if we are going to restore respect for human life in America. A return to the moral values of our Christian culture is a prerequisite for turning our society around. Returning moral values to our educational process is crucial to any improvement in the new American crime wave. Dealing with the issue of values is central to improving the scene in America.

There are other steps that can be taken which will help to control the modern crime wave, also.

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

A fear of punishment must be restored to the judicial process. The following chart shows the amount of time that convicted criminals can expect to spend in prison for their crimes.

AMOUNT OF TIME CRIMINALS CAN EXPECT TO SERVE FOR THEIR CRIMES
CRIME	TIME
Murder	1.8 years
Rape	60 days
Robbery	23 days
Arson	12.5 days
Aggravated assault	6.4 days
Burglary	5.4 days
Auto theft	3.8 days
Larceny	2.2 days

As long as the time served is relatively minor compared to possible benefits of crime, jail will not be a powerful detriment. As the time spent in prison has declined, the number of serious crimes has greatly increased.

Dr. Ernest Van Der Haag commented on the relationship between incentives and punishments and crime in the May 30, 1994, issue of National Review:

Human actions are governed by incentives and disincentives. We are attracted by the hope of pleasure or gain, deterred by the fear of pain or loss. Expressive crimes (e.g., rape) are committed for the sake of expected pleasure; instrumental crimes (e.g., burglary) mainly for the sake of expected gain. Both often can be deterred by disincentives -- the fear of pain . . . the threat of punishment. To be sure, people, including prospective criminals, seldom actually calculate the cost versus the benefit, the risk/reward ratio. Nor do rats. Yet rats, like people, respond as if they calculated. We can predict their behavior accordingly. Traffic lights would be useless if behavior were unpredictable.

Habits, based on often indirect experience, not on calculation, determine most behavior, law-abiding as well as criminal. When the cost of a good or service rises, less of it is used. If the cost of bananas, or of cars, goes up, fewer are bought. To the criminal, the cost of a crime is the risk of punishment. Not what is threatened by the law, but the punishment he risks given his actual chances of being convicted and imprisoned.

Though the cost of keeping someone in prison is about $25,000 a year, the cost of leaving dangerous criminals on the street is much greater.

Identifying career criminals would also be helpful to restoring law and order and putting them away for good. Seventy percent of all crimes are committed by seven percent of the criminal population. Protecting society from this relatively small number of people would make a big difference.

Enforcing truancy laws would cut down on juvenile crime in the daytime. After such a program was introduced in Charleston, South Carolina, total daytime crime went down 27%.

People are returning to the concept of community policing in many neighborhoods with some success. Letting the community and specific police officers develop a working relationship with each other seems to have a positive effect.

Raising or eliminating bail for repeat violent offenders and regulating probation and parole (limiting these to nonviolent offenses) help to protect the general public.

BIBLICAL CONCEPT OF RESTITUTION

Enforcing a strict concept of restitution for theft would greatly increase public respect for property. Under Old Testament Law, multiple restitution was required. "If a man steal an ox or a sheep and kill it, or sell it he shall restore five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep" (Exodus 22:1).

The Old Testament if full of other examples of the concept of restitution. The following chart will give several examples:

Restitution for assault:

"And if men strive together, and one smite another with a stone, or with his fist, and he die not, but keepeth his bed: If he rise again, and walk abroad upon his staff, then shall he that smote him be quit: only he shall pay for the loss of his time, and shall cause him to be throughly healed" (Exodus 12:18-19).

Restitution for bodily injury:

"And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye’s sake. And if he smite out his manservant’s tooth, or his maidservant’s tooth; he shall let him go free for his tooth’s sake" (Exodus 21:26-27).

Restitution where there is liability:

"And if a man shall open a pit, or if a man shall dig a pit, and not cover it, and an ox or an ass fall therein; The owner of the pit shall make it good, and give money unto the owner of them; and the dead beast shall be his. And if one man’s ox hurt another’s, that he die; then they shall sell the live ox, and divide the money of it; and the dead ox also they shall divide. Of if it be known that the ox hath used to push in time past, and this owner hath not kept him in; he shall surely pay ox for ox; and the dead shall be his own" (Exodus 21:33-36)

Restitution for property damage:

"If a man shall cause a field or vineyard to be eaten, and shall put in his beast, and shall feed in another man’s field; of the best of his own field, and of the best of his own vineyard shall he make restitution. If fire break out, and catch in thorns, so that the stacks of corn, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed therewith; he that kindled the fire shall surely make restitution" (Exodus 22:5-6).

Restitution for irresponsibility:

"If a man shall deliver unto his neighbour money or stuff to keep, and it be stolen out of the man’s house; if the thief be found, let him pay double. If the thief be not found, then the master of the house shall be brought unto the judges, to see whether he have put his hand unto his neighbour’s goods. For all manner of trespass, whether it be for ox, for ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any manner of lost thing, which another challengeth to be his, the cause of both parties shall come before the judges; and whom the judge shall condemn, he shall pay double unto his neighbour. If a man deliver unto his neighbour an ass, or an ox, or a sheep, or any beast, to keep; and it die, or be hurt, or driven away, no man seeing it: Then shall an oath of the LORD be between them both, that he hath not put his hand unto his neighbour’s goods; and the owner of it shall accept thereof, and he shall not make it good. And if it be stolen from him, he shall make restitution unto the owner thereof. If it be torn in pieces, then let him bring it for witness, and he shall not make good that which was torn" (Exodus 22:7-13).

Restitution for losing borrowed things:

"And if a man borrow ought of his neighbour, and it be hurt, or die, the owner thereof being not with it, he shall surely make it good. But if the owner thereof be with it, he shall not make it good: if it be an hired thing, it came for his hire" (Exodus 22:14-15).

The Biblical concept of restitution focuses on the victim rather than on the government. It also creates a respect for property. It also makes the price-tag for crime a heavy one.

Until our historic Christian culture becomes the mainstream culture in our country again, Americans will have a regular reminder of the results of paganism. The amount of crime, the fear of crime, and the debate over crime are the heritage of our Culture War.

 Dr. Phil Stringer is Executive Vice President of Landmark Baptist College, Haines City, Florida.