Inmates are running the asylum

THE EDITOR, Madam:

Recently, I received an email outlining the criminal justice system in Singapore, with its enforcement of capital and corporal punishment and very strict drug laws. There were details of how zero tolerance by police makes for a safe environment and equality under the law.

The sender wondered how long it will be before other countries adopt similar criminal justice systems. It was easy to see where he was coming from, as parts of our society seem to be completely broken today. Almost every day, the local television news carries stories of drug-addicted and mentally ill people committing violent acts, property crimes and brazen theft from business premises in the downtown core, after taking over entire city blocks with homeless encampments. They are arrested over and over, taken to court, and set free almost immediately to continue the mayhem. This is not only happening in Canada, but in many other countries around the world. And governments everywhere seem unable to remedy the situation. Most tragically, there are very few mental health facilities that offer treatment and confinement for the multitudes so badly afflicted.

The situation in Singapore got me thinking about how our present dilemma came about, and I remembered that great societal changes began a few years after World War II, with many human and civil rights laws coming into effect, along with a move towards political correctness. Centuries of colonisation ended, with many countries becoming independent from imperial rulers, and there was deinstitutionalisation of mental health care almost everywhere.

Most of those societal changes came during the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s when I was working as a navigator and then shipmaster on freighters and tankers travelling all over the globe. From the bright lights of cities like New Orleans, Hamburg and Hong Kong to darker places like Port Harcourt in the Niger River delta during the Biafran Civil War, and to Boma in the Congo during their civil war, the societal changes I witnessed with my own eyes appeared to be great advances for humankind at the time. Unfortunately, what looked like progress when introduced has in many cases led to the woke culture and political polarisation we have now, where it often appears that the inmates are running the asylum.

BERNIE SMITH

Parksville, BC

Canada