...Why It Seems That Society Approaches Issues The Wrong Way

Murder. Rape. Robbery. Theft. Assassination. We hear or read at least one of these words on the news every day. They happen all around the world and they are things that should ideally be stopped. No one likes to be murdered or assassinated, raped, robbed or stolen from. And we try our best to prevent these things from happening. Notice I used the word "prevent" rather than "stop". To me, there's a fine difference:

"Stop" (institutional protection) would imply that we take action and put a halt to the schemes plotted by all the potential murderers, robbers etc. It is the active solution. We enforce laws about firearms and weaponry. We get them to talk to professionals and we keep an eye on them. We educate them and we may even keep them confined. We tell them that they can start fresh, and whether they choose to follow that path is up to them.

"Prevent' (private protection) is simply the passive action. The actions we do in order to stop it happening to us. We own large dogs to guard the house, we lock our doors, we don't go walking down a creepy alley at 3am in the morning. We protect ourselves from imminent danger and we do what we can to keep safe in case something does happen.

There is nothing wrong with taking precautions but it just seems to me that society is focussing more on preventing these issues from happening rather than actually stopping it, focussing on what the victims can do, rather than what the criminal can't do. In New Zealand, I swear a robber has more rights than the person who he or she is robbing. We can't hit them unless they attack us first or something ridiculous like that. When we got robbed, the police told us that the solution is installing an alarm and getting insurance. Like honestly? It makes it seem like it's our fault that these people broke into our house through a locked window and took our stuff.

And it's not just the authorities, it's people in general too. You know, when you're a girl and you try to go out in a mini-skirt at 11pm on a Friday night, your Dad tells you to change because you look like a whore and that you shouldn't wear something that attracts so much attention. If that is the case, why don't we also tell our children before they go out not to rob, to stab or to rape? How is it fair that the potential victims have to do everything to protect themselves when it isn't their fault to begin with? We don't have signs on our head that say "steal from me please" or "attack away". Like I said, no one likes to be murdered or assassinated, raped, robbed or stolen from. Precautions are certainly important, but I just wish that the attention and focus of these problems would shift a little.

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The overall purpose of the blog is to say that I think that there should be just as much attention on "institutional prevention" as there is on "private protection". I know currently both exist in New Zealand, don't get me wrong. But I just want it to be more equal in terms of focus. That is all.