After years of much talk on how best to deal with the scourge of praedial larceny, the best solution that the Minister of Agriculture and his advisers were able to come up with was to arm farmers with a 'receipt book'. This was aimed at getting persons found travelling with farm produce, animals or their carcasses to prove ownership or purchase by way of receipts. Thousands of these books were printed in expectation of the presumed effectiveness as the weapon to destroy and eliminate any and all levels of praedial criminality.

Perhaps the minister and his advisers failed to canvass the opinion or input from a sufficiently wide cross-section of people who farm or who have been victims of this crime. They would have been told in no uncertain manner that the printing of receipt books was hardly the answer. So few people would share the minister's anguish and disappointment when he admitted on national television recently that "receipt book is not a deterrent to cattle thieves".

The minister should now consider replacing the 'receipt book' with a more effective method of deterrence and sanction. If this is not addressed, and soon, punishment could remain in the hands of vigilantes who only catch a small number of praedial thieves, and who, when caught, are often punished severely or fatally.

But while many of us may abhor vigilante justice, the sloppy enforcement of the laws, relating to praedial larceny, encourages the aggrieved victims to disregard the rule of law and seek their own 'justice'.

The fact is whether the farmer is a big-time rancher or a single mother rearing a single cow as an investment, their loss is just as painful and distressing. The upshot is that in many people's thinking, the same fate that befell the stolen cattle should be the consequence for the thief who is caught.

But sporadic instances of vigilante justice and vigilante discipline hardly constitute much of a warning to the thieves that other people's ground provisions and animals should be left alone. So they continue with a certain confidence that they are more likely to get away with their thievery than being caught.

It may well be time to train and recruit a special group of wardens to patrol farm communities across the country. But then, we need to remember, too, that nabbing praedial thieves is but one plank in the general fight against crime of whatever kind.

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