Our deterrence system for crimes against women is broken. There are so many slips between the incident and actual justice, that by the time the punishment is meted out, all parties have moved on and it becomes divorced from what actually happened. The victim gets no relief out of the incarceration of her victim after so long and the accused is not set up as an example. When a man chooses to molest a woman, he doesn’t think that the consequences will be severe and swift. Like the guys in the Guwahati molestation casewho thought they were doing a public service and smiling and posing for the camera.
I have an idea that I think will make molesters truly think twice before they attack a women – make them pay a significant and ongoing financial compensation to her as punishment. The loss of money always pinches. It always hurts. Perhaps even more than jail time. The icing on the cake is when the offender knows that his actions have caused his “victim” to benefit in a financial manner!
Of course, this is in addition to whatever jail time is imposed.
When offenders are normally punished, the woman doesn’t benefit in any way. And the offender knows this. So it’s still a net loss for the victim, regardless of punishment. The purpose has been served. She was “taught a lesson”. But imagine if the victim were to benefit from the offender? Then he would think ten times before carrying out his plan. Because far from “teaching her a lesson”, he knows he will have to suffer to directly benefit her! No longer can he just assault her and have no more connection to the woman, leaving her with the shame and horror of what happened. Instead, his hard earned money will be transferred to her regularly.
Given that so many attacks on women stem from the hatred towards them and their “jeans wearing and pub hopping culture”, no one would molest a women if they thought she would ultimately come out of it on top. As I said before, right now any punishment meted out brings the woman no relief as such. What does she gain? This is why so many cases go unreported as well.
Change the incentives. Make the offender pay the victim and watch how afraid people will then be to touch a woman without her consent. Those thugs in Mangalore who proudly smiled for the camera? They would be quaking in their boots right now wondering just how many lakhs of rupees are going to be taken away from them and given to the brutalized girl. She would be a victim no longer. She would be adequately compensated for her physical and mental damage.
And all is well with the world :)
Lovely idea. Very useful.
There already exists the provision in law for imposing fine and then paying the victim compensation out of that fine or the whole fine itself. It’s done by Courts. But not quite often. The problem arises when the convict has no means to pay. The law also remedies such a situation where all the movable or immovable property of the convict shall be attached and sold till the fine / compensation amount is not recovered. If he has absolutely no means to pay then his jail time is increased. It’s called imprisonment in default of payment of fine. It’s in addition to the original sentence of jail time. Since the process of recovering fine from an impoverished convict involves multiple procedures, it’s probably resorted to less. But I guess now with changing times, this has to be resorted to more often.
I’m glad Bhgwad, that you came up with such a nice victim oriented recourse. Therefore shared this info, hoping you’d be interested to know the law in this regard.
Regards,
Anupam
In reply to Anupam
As far as I know, the fines imposed are paltry amounts – a one time payment in the range of a few thousand rupees. Not enough of a deterrent in today’s world.
Ramp it up to a few thousand rupees per month, and then let’s see. The sight of that money leaving the offender’s bank account every month to go to his “victim” will be a real punishment. Also, many molesters are not the roadside vagabond types. The recent Guwahati incident proved that. So the low fines are clearly not working.
In reply to bhagwad
I humbly differ Bhagvad.
A procedure is always established taking into account all the possible scenarios. When you think of only one side while enacting a particular law, it is more likely to be abused than well used. It is my humble opinion that a monthly scheme of paying money will open up the provision for serious abuse.
When Section 498 A, IPC was enacted (punishment against harassment of married women) all hailed it. But if you take a survey today, you’ll be shocked at the rate by which it has earned disapproval. The reason being it’s gross misuse.
While I respect your objective stand, I’m afraid taking such a step would do more harm than good.
How long will the convict keep paying ? What will be the standard of fixing the duration of payment ? How will one rationally distinguish one case from another in fixing that duration for different cases ? What if the convict has no means to pay ? These are just a few things that I can think of right now. I’m sure in application a few more significant roadblocks are bound to occur.
Therefore the monetary compensation / fine should always be ONE TIME. It must be exemplary and HIGH though, besides jail time so that it acts as a deterrent.
Now there is no fixed / paltry sum of compensation as you think. I’ll just quote the relevant law for your reference. It’s Section 357 of Code of Criminal Procedure
357. Order to pay compensation …..(3) When a Court imposes a sentence, of which fine does not form a part, the Court may, when passing judgment, order the accused person to pay, by way of compensation, such amount as may be specified in the order to the person who has suffered any loss or injury by reason of the act for which the accused person has been so sentenced.
So as you can see there is no limitation on the amount of compensation which can be offered to the victim.
Lastly I’d just wish to say that it’s never only about the punishment, fine or jail time or whatever. Had it been so, no murder would have taken place after the first murderer was hanged. I’m sure death penalty is the most deterrent punishment of all.
A lot has to be improved about perceptions. A different discussion altogether.
In reply to Anupam
Oh, I completely agree that it’s not merely about prevention. I’m not sure the death sentence is not all that preventive anyway. And yes, the punishment has to of course fit the crime.
I write for a law firm in the US, so let me borrow a few things I’ve learned. We have different categories of the same crime. Aggravated rape, rape with battery, rape by a person in authority, rape of a minor, rape with blackmail, gangrape etc. Each of these increases the seriousness and hence the punishment. Shouldn’t be hard to create a table with the seriousness level and the amount+time period adjusted for inflation.
And yes, I know that Section 498 A, IPC is being misused. But not because of the punishment, but because it provides for lax procedures without hearing the man’s end of the story. I’m suggesting punishment only after a person has been duly convicted in court. His/her rights are not to be violated at any cost.
If what you’re saying it accurate, I wonder why judges lay down such paltry amounts of fines though…
In reply to bhagwad
Now that is a point of serious concern. And the Hon’ble Supreme Court has time and again pointed that out.
In India though there are no separate forms of rape, but the accused can be charged separately and tried for all the offences in the same trial e.g. rape & murder, abduction & rape, assault & rape, rape & robbery etc. Automatically the jail time and the fine / compensation is enhanced thus. However Section 376, 376 A to D deal with custodial rapes, gang rapes and other heinous forms of rape. Google it for a detailed study.
When I pointed out the issue of S. 498 A, I didn’t mean punishment as much as I meant enactment. I wanted to wanted to highlight the fact that an imbalanced enactment can have serious setbacks. A punishment also comes into the law books by way of enactment. A monthly scheme of paying fine and / or compensation may offer implementation roadblocks a few of which as I’ve pointed out.
I’m glad to have read your post as I’m glad to have added to your info base.
Sounds like a good idea. Also, read the comment above and your response. I am convinced that atleast in cases where MMS clips and videos are made, there should be one time, massive compensation should be made. Monthly compensation might require monthly effort to make the molester pay up.
In reply to Indian Homemaker
Hmm..in the US, I’ve written about something called “garnishment” where the amounts to be paid legally by a person is cut straight from their paycheck if they work with an employer. Like taxes or child support. That would be neat.
But a massive one time payment (of a few lakhs) can also be imposed I guess. Though not as effective I think.
But again it has to go through the same system where the DGP/DIG/whatever smiles shamelessly when a sensible question is asked from him. Following up the case is one issue and if that is not done often, no one will ever get the punishment.
In reply to TG
True – we need to work on that aspect urgently.
This plan would not work if monetary compensation would be the only punishment. I can already imagine misogynists who will treat every woman as a prostitute, rape her and then pay her. It needs to be imprisonment AND monetary compensation.
But all this will work if they actually catch the rapists in the first place. In our glorious country where men smile at the camera while molesting women no punishment will be effective if the act is not considered a crime in the first place.
In reply to Meghana
Agreed. Of course there has to be jail time as well. And the compensation has to be well above the paltry few thousand rupees that they are made to pay now.
I would have thought that something similar might already be in place? As in damages awarded or something, but if not this alimony type punishment is definitely a good idea. Might be hard to execute though because not everyone’s paycheques e.t.c. are so regulated that it can be cut off at the source, and the offenders might have to be hounded every month to pay. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
Also, I think one of the reasons these kind of criminals are comfortable molesting/raping/harassing women is because at the end of the day no one around them need know, and they can go home and pretend that they are paragons of virtue. I think in addition to jail time/fines convicted criminals should have their crimes (“RAPIST” or “MOLESTER”) tattooed on their foreheads so everyone around them knows what they did. So that their families know, their friends know, future potential partners know, employers know, that the much dreaded society knows. I feel like this will be a really effective deterrant, and relatively easy to implement.
In reply to BBD-Lite
No we can’t do that. For many reasons. Just like you can’t have castration. It can’t be an unusual punishment. Monetary compensation is already a well established way of penalizing someone. Should be no problems there.
I wonder if this might increase the incentive for women to make false rape claims. I suppose it’s usually easy to disprove such claims, so this might not be too big a problem.
But what if the man was reduced to a position where he thought he had nothing to lose in exacting revenge against the victim using the same means that had him convicted in the first place? That is, what if he attempts to molest her again, this time for revenge.
I don’t know how often it happens, but I’ve always imagined that I would be hesitant to have anyone arrested for any crime for fear that he might do worse things to me once he has served time.
In reply to Kaiserbot
Typically, the punishment for repeat crimes is far higher than the first. This is usually held to be an effective deterrent provided the justice system acts quickly.
hmmm not a bad idea at all.. but i just hope that (few) women dont take it as a chance, provocate men to do crime just for the huge money.
In reply to ashreya
I hope they do. I hope they provoke men as much as possible and win large sums of cash. This will prove a point and make men even more wary of doing anything to a woman!
I agree with you. Something similar happens in the arab countries. Murder convicts have to pay the victims family a huge stash of money as compensation or they stay in jail for ever.
There are a few small glitches.
1. In a country like ours where it is so easy for people evade tax, it is very easy to say that the convict isn’t earning anything at all.
2. It is also very easy for the convict to show a long line of family and say that they are his dependents (school going children, house wife, diseased and bed ridden parents, physically challenged siblings) and he can’t afford to feed them two decent meals a day, let alone pay the victim.
And the court has in many divorce cases, has taken cognizance of such situations and reduced the alimony. I am sure they’d do it here too.
In reply to ACS
Good points. Then jail time will have to do. But more and more I’m seeing that well to do people are indulging in these crimes. Like the Guwahati case where the main guy was well off, working for a tech company.
Read the comments by Anupam, IHM and ACS. The problem is our country is less about what the punishment is and how effective its implementation is. Even if we were to bring your suggestion into practice, following up monthly for the attacker is a pain in itself. Loved the “garnishment’ concept you explained. Wish we had stringent measures in place.
Kaiserbot raises a freaky but valid point. Never thought of about inversely from this angle.
In reply to Ashwathy
I agree – effective implementation might make even the current laws enough of a deterrent. But I’m saying that even if the process is delayed as long as it usually is in Indian courts, making the victim pay a monthly fine would remind him and serve as a warning to others.
well i have a different point of view…its v easy to suggest pay, ONE- one doesnt realize the the agony a girl goes through , TWO – in several cases girls can implicate men in false cases for money…. such criminals shd b dealt severely… like in Arab world.