Chit-chat on Article 153

From a conversation analysing Article 153:

UPDATED (unscribbling the scribbles - and adding a link to a comment I made on this last month):

Apologies for scribbling - still in bed atm.

- The bumiputera policies we see as implementations of the constitution, are mainly mahathirist policies.

- M's own political journey, from banned book writer, to sitting PM while being writer of a banned book, to turning the book into thirty years of bad* policy (mea culpa, i judge, but this is all debatable) is quite amusing.

- As you say, there is a clear difference between the letter of a law (constitution) and the policy implementations of that law by the executive branch of government (what the public thinks of as "the law").

- - Here is another example: the federal government is given the right but not the obligation to remove Malaysian citizenship from Malaysian citizens who behave like citizens of other countries (dual-citizens, etc.). That is in law; but it an implementation of that law, by the executives under M, that has enacted a policy of almost always removing the Malaysian citizenship from such citizens. Over decades of this particular implementation, many have come to think that the law obliges the government to ban double citizenships; the law does not do this - M did this (to the best of my knowledge).

- M for all his strengths, sadly, enjoys shooting from the hip when it comes to strategy; he intuits vaguely, and executes meticulously. This gave us the 1970s-2000s. (Unless, I am mistaken from my unprivileged point of observation.) Then in the 2000s-2010s, his brethren fucked that up even further (there were a few straightenings out, but the fuck-ups were more numerous, as we can all see).

- And now M is back. He has changed views, and updated his rhetoric on believing in a new and differently managed Malaysia. However, his political constituents have vested interests and cultures, and are not clambering over themselves to turn Malaysia's bigoted policies around.

- One of my key hopes these days is that M will have time to write a new book before he expires; lest we have to remember him by his first one forever.

- Also i hope he gets a better editor.

- previous thoughts: https://www.facebook.com/jerngatwork/posts/1082096415304398

Further Thoughts on Public Health and Criminal Justice

From follow-up conversations on this.

I agree with your main point. I think the chap has indisputably broken the letter of the grooming law, and must be charged.

That being said, I do think that his inability to engage with truth statements and social politics from a young age should be taken into account in the dispensation of punishment and/or treatment by the courts.

The church, or social club, or family has a role in the management of social deviance. These are tracks of support which are informal, and mostly unregulated by law. The formal tracks are the criminal justice system, the health system, etc.

What I saying is that we need both systems, and multiple tracks of *formally coordinated* support for deviants in society.

It is my hope that many of the punitive treatments in the penal code come under additional legislation, of having to be additionally recommended by clinical psychologists. I literally, at this point, want to have the clinical psychologists run the part of the criminal justice system which has the KPI of reforming the thoughts and feelings of criminals. I want all laws reviewed to give them this power and responsibility.

- Currently we probably don't have enough clinical psychologists to get this done. We probably don't even have a mature enough understanding of these things at the highest levels of policy making. I hope that the Women's/ Family / Human Capital / Law / Religion / Medicine arms of cabinet will form a joint committee to look into this initiative. Other countries are decades ahead, and we may not want to become exactly like them, but it would be good to look into it a little bit.

- I include Religion because it is still an inextricable part of Malaysian politics - any policies formed without those stakeholders are ultimately doomed. The question is never how to cleave between religion and state, but how to involve religion rationally in state. That's the hard problem of running states of religious peoples.

- To tie it all up a bit more: I really do think that crime / psychological deviance / personal preference / good and evil / social norms, are just one huge, long, slippery slope. So that's where my policy preferences come from. People who believe in abstract good and evil are accommodated in my model, but they believe in a different model.

Letter to the Editor - Reflecting on Malaysia's Infrastructure for Dealing with Crime as a Public Health Concern

(publication link)

As published:

ON NOV 7, I recognised a childhood colleague from the 1990s, in a post that had “gone viral” on social media.

The allegation of the post was that John Doe had developed a career of harassment, targeting children who volunteered in religious societies and charities.

Firstly, I’m looking at it from a public health point of view. What are the appropriate channels that the government needs to put in place, such that the right multi-track support programmes can be administered to the accused and the victims?

There is a view that there are two parts to dealing with crime in society.

(a) Punitively, by simply punishing those who engage in behaviours deemed illegal, and hope that this acts as a deterrent to future crimes.

(b) As a public health issue, with multiple simultaneous tracks of social, medical, legal, and perhaps including punitive support.

Secondly, even when we have non-punitive tracks to deal with perpetrators, the law cannot take effect without the initiation of a formal process. For someone to receive formal clinical diagnosis and treatment, they have to first either:

(c) Be charged under a law, whereby the courts can thereafter assign them to a social worker or medical personnel for evaluation, or

(d) They must voluntarily seek out diagnosis and treatment.

The formal method for initiating proceedings for anyone who isn’t John Doe himself, is to file a police report. Meanwhile, as the behaviour of the accused has been neither diagnosed by a professional, or formally charged in court, it receives trial by social media, which is not efficient in helping us to determine the whole truth about the issue.

John Doe has already responded to media interviews. I don’t think it’s appropriate to speculate on his specific philosophical positions: neither his views on how he engages with society, nor his views on whether his behaviour is ethical or not. Those are his opinions; they will be taken into consideration by clinical professionals in the event of clinical diagnosis. We can only review what he has actually done, and it returns to the courts to properly convict an individual if he is guilty.

Finally, in my experience of socialising with him in weekly activities over a period of years, it was known that he was never very well-adjusted to society. He was often bullied for being inept at fitting in with the crowd. I know this for a fact because I participated in the bullying at that time – it wasn’t spectacularly violent, bloody stuff, but I do believe that teasing between children, social castigation and verbal abuse are all forms of bullying which may have long-term effects on individuals.

Bullying is easy to spot and deal with. But is it even possible for governments to put in place mechanisms where we can go a step further, where all members of society are familiar with spotting, tagging, and assigning professional social workers to cases of other forms of deviance in children from a young age? Do we want our society to become robust enough to accommodate such facilities?

The relationship between what counts as social norm, and what counts as crime, is often more complex than we may want to admit. Thinking deeply about this issue often reveals that we arbitrarily decide what is good and bad based on what is convenient. For some people, it may seem easier to refer to God; and for others, the truth is more mundane – we all have different intuitions, and can only agree on a social contract which must be explicitly defined, and enforced with checks and balances. That is the rule of law.

HWA YANG JERNG

Kuala Lumpur

TAGS / KEYWORDS:
Letters , Criminal , Sexual Predator , Grooming

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As drafted:

Letter to the Editor - Reflecting on Malaysia's Infrastructure for Dealing with Crime as a Public Health Concern

On 7 November, I recognised a childhood colleague from the 1990s, in a post that had "gone viral" on social media. The allegation of the post was that John Doe had developed a career of harassment, targeting children who volunteered in religious societies and charities. My reaction was evenly distributed between sadness and amusement, and I continue to have this reaction as the story has developed across tabloids, and the front-page of certain mainstream newspapers.

Firstly, I'm looking for a lens on the issue from a public health point of view. What are the appropriate channels that we need the government to put into place, such that the right multi-track support programs can be administered to each of the accused and the victims?

There is a view that there are two parts to dealing with crime in society.
(a) Punitively, by simply punishing those who engage in behaviours deemed illegal, and hope that this acts as a deterrent to future crimes.
(b) As a public health issue, with multiple simultaneous tracks of social, medical, legal, and perhaps including punitive support.

Secondly, even when we have non-punitive tracks to deal with perpetrators, the law cannot take effect without the initiation of formal process. For someone to receive formal clinical diagnosis and treatment, they have to first either:

(c) be charged under a law, whereby the courts can thereafter assign them to a social worker or medical personnel, for evaluation, or
(d) they must voluntarily seek out diagnosis, and treatment.

The formal method for initiating proceedings for anyone who isn't John himself, is to file a police report. Meanwhile, as the behaviour of the accused has been neither diagnosed by a professional, or formally charged in court - it receives trial by social media, which is not efficient in helping us to determine the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about the issue at hand.

As of this time, John has already responded to media interviews. I don't think it's appropriate to speculate on John's specific philosophical positions: neither his views on how he engages with society, nor his views on whether his behaviour is ethical or not. Those are his opinions; they will be taken into consideration by clinical professionals in the event of clinical diagnosis. We can only review what he has actually done, against the letter of the law - and it returns to the courts to properly convict an individual if he is guilty.

Finally, in my experience of socialising with John in weekly activities over a period of years, it was known that he was never very well adjusted to society. In fact, this was to the extent that he was often bullied for being inept at fitting in with the crowd. I know this for a fact, because I participated in the bullying at that time - it wasn't spectacularly violent, bloody stuff, but I do believe that teasing between children, social castigation, and verbal abuse are all significant forms of bullying which may have long-term effects on individuals.

Bullying is easy to spot, and deal with. But is it even possible for governments to put in place mechanisms where we can go a step further, where all members of society are familiar with spotting, tagging, and assigning professional social workers to cases of other forms of deviance in children from a young age? Do we want our society to become robust enough to accommodate such facilities?

The relationship between what counts as a social norm, and what counts as crime, are often more complex than we may want to admit. Thinking deeply about this issues often reveals that we arbitrarily decide what is good and bad based on what is convenient. For some people, it may seem easier to refer to God; and for others, the truth is more mundane - we all have different intuitions, and can only agree on a social contract which must be explicitly defined, and enforced with checks and balances. That is rule of law.