This is a hard one for me. Clearly in their line of work, many put themselves in much closer contact with criminals than most of the rest of us. And that’s something highly admirable. And yes, some of them do get hurt and killed.
But I find it really hard to believe that the punishment for injuring or killing a policeman should be severe than for the same crime against a non-policeman. People are people are people.
I think that it’s all to do with my core issue – what actually is punishment for? To vent our own anger, our own sadness. To help rehabilitate, as we have a core belief that people can all be good and “behave” well. Deterrence. To remove the trouble from the street.
Most of the debate tends to centre around the “vent”, with little thought to what actually is the end goal. And this is no exception.
raam thakrar 