The Cost of Leniency: Can Small Crimes Lead to Anarchy?

Rules and regulations are made for men, not men for the rules and regulations. In that same way, rules exists to maintain orderliness in the society, and anarchy sets in when these rules are made and yet not followed.

The reason why people get punished when they've committed a crime isn't just because of the immediate impact but rather, to avoid the negative ripple effects that comes with letting them go.

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Maybe there will be a crime you'll refer to as the small one, what do you think happens when you pardon someone who commits that crime bearing in mind that most persons takes leniency as weakness and would love to take the benefit of doubt to commit that crime again and again?
Won't others key in to committing that particular crime and use your pardoning the first person as leverage for you to pardon them whenever they commit theirs? This creates a dangerous precedent, leading to a breakdown in law and order.
What then becomes the order of our society? Anarchy.

Furthermore, there are some factors to consider if at all there should be a justifiable crime...
Where do you get to drawn the line? Who gets to say what the small crimes are and what the big crimes are? And how many times will that person commit such small crimes for you to say it's enough and punish the person for the same small crime you previously said doesn't deserved to be punished?

That notwithstanding like I said, laws are made for men and not men for the law which invariably means that sometimes, there ought to be flexibility in our dealings with people that committed a crime or another... Sometimes, it's really not anyone's wish to go down that route especially in the developing and underdeveloped countries where survival can be incredibly challenging, and motives and circumstances often blur the lines between right and wrong. However, this is in no way trying to justify any crime no matter how small you think they are..

Take for example, a single mother, unable to feed herself and her children for days as a result of low wages or unemployment as the case may be resort to stealing a loaf of bread from a grocery store.
Stealing undeniably is a crime worth punishing but, in this context, you can see that this crime wasn't committed out of greed or malice but just out of desperation and hunger, so you will believe with me that if justice is tampered with mercy on this woman, you may accept that.

But here is the catch, you know the grocery store salesgirl will be punished by the store owner when the accounts don't tally? Is it fair that the salesgirl struggling to make a living too pays for this out of her own little wage?
That's the negative ripple effect I was talking about, I guess you understand that now.

Is the Law Too Harsh?

While no crime should be left unpunished, the legal system should always take into context the motive of the perpetrator and maybe lessen the punishment, let's say, instead of imprisonment, community service should suffice.

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The government should also work into tackling the various motives why people committed different crimes they did and work towards solving the root causes.

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In summary, no crime should ever go unpunished because when we start doing so, we may lose track of what the right and wrong things truly are.
Rules and regulations are there to maintain law and order in the society but flexibility while executing these laws should be embraced to reflect humanity and compassion.

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Thanks for reading and have a nice day 👍

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