Improvement of legitimate repression for avoiding or reducing violence
Violence is ever present now in our daily life. There are people injuring, killing, stealing, and inflicting pain and suffering on others. It is necessary to intervene in order to inhibit and to isolate the violent agent and to prevent the destructive action from expanding. Therefore, repression is legitimate when performed within the legal parameters and in the democratic context. In this concept are the efforts to improve the criminal legislation. There is room for improvement of the legal base, which is an important role expected of the Legislative Branch that creates the laws to tackle crime.
There is also in this concept the improvement of the justice, which needs to provide quicker responses. There is generally the sense of delay in justice. Judges and prosecutors often refer to the structural and functional impediments related to the application of the law, which creates, due to the slowness, a feeling of impunity. Also in this concept of legitimate repression, we must seek improvements in the public security mechanisms: the police who work in prevention and investigation have a significant lack of scientific and technological support. Also, in many countries, the police are involved in cases of corruption that discourage any effective action in the reduction of organized crime. The family, in the concept of legitimate repression, plays a very important role aligned with the paternal power. Parents should use more consciously the constructive value of “no” and reduce the excessive permissiveness in relation to their children. In the building process of human beings, particularly of our children, we need to incorporate the power of the constructive “no” and to remember that alongside the “yes” that builds, there is also the “yes” that destroys.
Within the concept of legitimate repression, we must broaden our vision and ascertain that although repressive actions are very important, necessary, and legitimate, they are not sufficient. Most people, when asked about what to do to reduce violence, emphatically and primarily indicate repression. More police on the street, more vehicles, and more weapons are the predominant responses. Here resides a mistake that a metaphor can help us to understand: a child with meningitis has a high fever. To cure the child, the doctor prescribes two medications, one to lower the fever and the other to fight the bacteria. If the doctor only prescribes the medicine to lower the fever, there is no cure, because it is necessary to fight the bacteria. Therefore, the actions of justice and police are like the cure to lower the fever of the social disease that we call violence and that, in some cases, does not even succeed in lowering the fever, due to the seriousness of the disease. It is worrying when we observe educators prioritizing the concept of repression, without the comprehension that this is a complementary action. We need more consistent responses.
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