Is mandatory caning necessary for convicted vandals?
By Martin See
Who did the painting on this MRT train?
Michael Peter Fay, a mischievous American teenager, shot to worldwide fame after he was given the taste of Singapore's rattan rod (hint: it is not one of those Singapore delicacies). After being convicted of two charges of vandalism in 1994, he was sentenced to a total of four months' imprisonment and six strokes of the cane. Even a plea of clemency by the then US President Bill Clinton could not save Fay's bare buttocks (although it did reduce the number of strokes from six to four by the then Singapore President Ong Teng Cheong).
Following Fay's sentence, Singapore became internationally recognised as the country where chewing gums are banned and people are caned for vandalism. Even "Sue Sylvester", a fictional character from the Fox musical-comedy series glee, came out to say "You know, caning has fallen out of fashion in the United States. But ask anyone who safely walked the immaculate sidewalks of Singapore after winning an international cheerleading competition, and they will tell you one thing: Caning works! And I think it is about time we did a little more of it right here... yes, we cane!"
This issue has been brought to relevance by the recent vandalism of an MRT train committed by a 32-year-old Swiss national Oliver Fricker and his accomplice Dane Alexander Lloyd, a 29-year-old Briton. Both men slipped into the SMRT train depot in Changi, a protected place, under the cover of darkness and decorated an MRT train with the words of 'McKoy' and 'Banos'. While Lloyd remains at large, Fricker was sentenced to three months' imprisonment and the minimum three strokes of the cane after being convicted of the vandalism charge.
These two cases beg the question, is mandatory caning necessary for convicted vandals? Before I delve further into this question, it will be helpful if I educate our fellow readers on the relevant laws.
Under section 3 of the Vandalism Act, Cap. 341, "any person who commits any act of vandalism or attempts to do any such act or causes any such act to be done shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $2,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years, and shall also, subject to section 231 of the Criminal Procedure Code, be punished with caning with not less than 3 strokes and not more than 8 strokes". Under section 231 of the Criminal Procedure Code, such convicts cannot escape the rattan rod unless they are "a) women b) males sentenced to death c) males whom the court considers to be more than 50 years of age".
Apart from the provisions stated in the earlier paragraph, "punishment of caning shall not be imposed on a first conviction under this [Vandalism] Act in the case of any act falling within (a) paragraph (a) (i) of the definition of “act of vandalism” in section 2, if the writing, drawing, mark or inscription is done with pencil, crayon, chalk or other delible substance or thing and not with paint, tar or other indelible substance or thing; or (b) paragraph (a) (ii) or (a) (iii) of that definition". For the references to the paragraphs, you will have to read the Vandalism Act.
As stated in the preamble, the Vandalism Act is "to provide for exemplary punishment for acts of vandalism". But why is exemplary punishment necessary for such a non-violent crime? To answer the question satisfactorily, we have to understand its legislative intent. During the trial case of Michael Fay, it was put forward that the "original legislative intent behind the provision for caning in s 3 of the Vandalism Act was directed at suppressing those violent political elements which existed in Singapore in the 1960s and which wreaked havoc throughout our city by, inter alia, inscribing anti-national slogans in public places..." and subsequently, the then Honourable Chief Justice Yong Pung How also clarified, in his written judgment, that "the legislature was simultaneously concerned with containing anti-social acts of hooliganism." But these reasons do not answer why caning is to be of a mandatory nature.
Why not give the judiciary the discretion of sentencing them to caning instead of maintaining it as a mandatory punishment? Let the court consider the factual matrix and severity of each case before deciding on the appropriate sentence. In this way, it would give the court more flexibility in varying the sentence while deciding on the most appropriate punishment for the convicted vandals. After all, acts of vandalism are mostly non-violent and its damages usually non-permanent. At this point of time, I want to stress that I do not condone acts of vandalism and that these convicted vandals do deserve some sort of punishment. However, to impose mandatory caning on these convicted vandals, without considering the facts and circumstances of each case, would be too harsh a punishment.
What do you think?
Evaluating Articles
By Martin See
Who did the writing?
You can hear the fashionable phrase research skills widely bandied about these days. The phrase amounts to doing your homework on a certain research topic, which includes finding out as much relevant information as possible by going through the existing literature, be it in paper or digital formats. It does not matter whether you are a student working on your project paper or an employee writing your report; you will constantly require these skills to excel in your work because every argument that you make or every suggestion that you raise ideally requires you to do research on them and to include current literature on those points. Note the use of the word skills in the previous sentences. Being skills, they can be learnt. This article will help you to improve an area of these skills, namely the ability to evaluate articles or sources in your work.
When you are evaluating your articles or sources, you may want to consider these key points:
a) Peer reviews
Most credible articles are peer reviewed by qualified experts in the relevant fields. It means that before the articles are published, they are subjected to intense scrutiny from their fellow colleagues, researchers, and other experts. An article published in Science, the academic journal of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, would obviously have gone through more processes of regulations and checks as compared to one published in ERPZ (a really unfortunate example). The more rigorous the peer reviews, the more credible the articles will be.
b) Authorship
Before you consider any ideas/arguments made in a paper, always do a thorough research on the author. Is the author a qualified expert in the field of study? An article on the physics of fluids by a well known economist is probably a dubious work. A general rule of thumb is to use the works of authors who are authorities in the relevant research fields. You may also want to consider if the authors have any personal agendas. You are less likely, for example, to believe in a glowing report on the financial stability of Yahoo! if it is prepared by an analyst with a heavy portfolio in Yahoo! shares as compared to an independent financial institution. Some research papers may also be heavily funded by some particular organisations and this may have significant bearing on the conclusions in the paper. Would you trust a health report on the effects of smoking if it was funded by Philip Morris? It is, therefore, important to consider the authors of the articles that you are using in your work.
c) Context
Every paper or every work is written and published in different contexts. If you want a contemporary view of World War I, you would probably not want to pick a book published in the 1920s, the post-era. So carefully consider the contexts of articles before you use them in your work.
d) Recency
When you use an article or source in your work, you would want the most recent idea/argument (assuming that the quality is the same in the comparison) except in special circumstances (e.g. history). This is especially relevant if the ideas/arguments are made obsolete rapidly, such as in the industry of information technology (IT). Unless the old articles offers an unique viewpoint, it would be better off for you to find recent articles to use for your work. As a general rule of thumb, stick to sources that are five years (or less) from your work. Imagine if a work is published in 2005, the research and the data involved in the work would most likely not be from 2005 but from 2003 or 2002. That is at least a gap of 7 years from your work (2010). A bigger gap would be more adverse and you would do well to avoid that in your work.
With all these considerations, I wish you all the best in your research! If you find that there are other considerations too, please share it with the ERPZ audience in the comments section.
Fly Away
By Martin See
Away from home
Blogging from a nanotechnology laboratory in Illinois isn’t exactly what I envisioned for my post-ORD trip but reality often strikes us in the most awkward ways. Dressed in a white lab coat and a safety goggle, I shall share with you my holiday experience thus far:
Life was getting boring in hot and humid Singapore. I have just finished my national service in January. Most of my peers decided to find employment, before the start of their university term, to earn some money and to use their time “productively”. I use “” because productivity is a subjective term; while others may think spending their time at work and slogging their guts out for their employer is more rewarding than rotting at home, I think using this time for personal development by broadening your horizons and discovering yourself is far more valuable than being stuck at the work desk. Hence, I decided to venture overseas to move outside of my comfort zone and explore independent living in a foreign country.
My journey has brought me to many places. I admired the skyscrapers of Chicago, walked the streets of Times Square, and relaxed in the slow pace of life in Illinois. Saint Augustine once said, “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page”. So don’t stay at home. Go far away and immerse yourself in another culture of life. Get inspired in another environment. Lose your stress and worries in your new home. And take some time to organize your life.
I hope to come back with renewed vigor and a focused attitude on life. Won’t you say this is a better substitute than sitting at a work desk?
Don’t Kill Nouns with Adjectives
By Martin See
Enemy of the noun?
The sweltering heat these days reminds me of my old, favourite introduction: "The monstrous red ball of supreme heat hung on the light-blue sky, threatening to melt all the helpless pedestrians on the busy street with its radiating warmth". I loved this introduction so much that I would use it for almost every primary school composition assignment irregardless of the question; after some time, my teacher became so accustomed to my writing that he could identify my composition from its first sentence. Since my teacher did not complain much, I had the false belief that my descriptive introduction reflected good writing style. Eventually, the use of adjectives became a desire to show off my rich vocabulary and that resulted in an immature writing style.
I did not realise my mistake until much later, when I entered high school. My heavily adjectival prose caught my teacher's attention and when she could not take it any longer, she summoned me to her office. That day in her office changed my writing drastically because it was there that I understood the shortcomings of my style; instead of displaying my proficiency in the English language, the constant use of adjectives only made my writing embarrassingly ornate. In addition, my writing also suggests a lack of confidence, as if I am trying to make up for my inability by overdecorating my sentences. If every crisis is a critical crisis, every emergency an urgent emergency, and every problem a grave problem, then the whole idea of a crisis, an emergency, or a problem becomes devalued. In these situations, the adjective becomes the enemy of the noun.
That does not mean that we can do away with adjectives. Adjectives have their uses when they define and refine rather than simply emphasise. In the sentence "We are in legal trouble", the adjective, legal, has a truly informative function. For a vigorous style, you can try replacing adjectives with colourful nouns. "The penniless man that lives in a small, filthy hut" can be replaced by "the pauper that lives in a hovel." A "large and impressive house" can be replaced by a "mansion" and so on. You get the idea. Now, before you give in to the temptation of using flamboyant language, do remember the guiding principle of using adjectives and you will surely produce a good piece of writing!
The Truth About Procrastination
By Martin See
To all my friends at EPRZ, I am back!
I have been intending to write this article for months, ever since I published my first in June 09. But why didn’t I write it? Because I have to practise what I preach. I have to do the things that I advise my readers to do. Today’s article discusses the benefits of good procrastination and there is no better way to validate its credibility than to use myself as the test subject. Here are the facts of my research.
As children, we were told by our parents to stop procrastinating and start working on our household chores. As students, we were told by our teachers to stop procrastinating and start working on our school assignments. And they would always use this popular saying, “the early bird catches the worm”, to support their argument. Fair enough. But what happens to the early worm? Doesn’t it get eaten? The truth of the matter is that procrastination can be good or bad depending on how you use it. So the important issue is not how you should avoid procrastination but how you should use procrastination to your advantage.
There are many activities that you could be doing now. All these activities are competing for your time and attention. How do you decide which activity to begin and which to postpone? Through objective evaluation, you will have to rate each activity in importance. After that, you will have to practice the principles of good procrastination- to learn when to do the right things and to postpone the wrong things. It means choosing to avoid lesser activities in favour of greater goals. If you have just been struck by a brilliant inspiration, for example, then you should work on that new idea and postpone the thought of running an errand for your parents. Learning to prioritise is, thus, the key to good procrastination.
During my absence from ERPZ, I have completed my National Service, organised several grassroots events, and earned my driving license among many other completed tasks. I have been using procrastination to my advantage by avoiding the less important activities to do the real work. And even though I have sacrificed the cleanliness of my room, the well-being of my stomach, and of course the welfare of the readers at ERPZ, I have accomplished much by practising good procrastination.
Most people will tell you that procrastination is bad and that you should avoid it or cure it. Their ill advice is predicated on the false belief that procrastination means doing absolutely nothing. Author Paul Graham writes that “there are three types of procrastination, depending on what you do instead of working on something: you could work on a) nothing, b) something less important, c) something more important.” The last type, good procrastination, is what you should strive for.
Tale of the Valiant Knight
By Martin See
Your eyes are fixated on the digital clock located at the front section of the school hall. The time inches towards judgement day. You are five minutes away from taking the most important examination in your life; the obstacle that separates you from your goals. Your stomach churns and groans in trepidation. Your hand shakes to its own rhythm. Fear chokes you as you struggle to recall the labyrinth of theories that you desperately studied the night before the examination.
You are afraid of the questions that lie ahead. How will I respond if I encounter unfamiliar questions? What happens if I run out of time to complete the paper? What will I do if I can't achieve my desired grade? These insecurities and uncertainties gradually worm its way into your mind, poisoning it with a cloak of pessimism. Any self-belief that you had prior to the examination would be drained away in a fashion similar to the Dementor's kiss.
For those of you who have accounts of such harrowing experience, I have a lot of sympathy for you because I know exactly how it feels to be that student. During my early schooling days, I was allergic to examination! The allergy manifest itself in many unpleasant ways. It was such a horrible experience! After being immeasurably frustrated by the same problem time and again, I decided it was time to control my mind and protect it from doubts and fears.
I had a taste for fairytale so I imagined myself as a valiant knight who was clothed in sturdy armour and equipped with the most menacing-looking lance. I was to ride to the land of Mathematica and to slay its heinous King using my newly acquired knowledge. In another scenario, I was an intrepid knight confronting the infamous nine-headed beast in the notorious wasteland of Scientia. I know it sounds like an absurd story to you but it did the trick! Through the power of imagination, I was no longer the kid sitting for the most important examination but I was the valiant knight, a noble man full of confidence and self-belief.
My new mindset yielded very positive results. The surge in confidence and my belief in my abilities influenced the way I studied subjects and how I answered questions. As Henry Ford, the automobile industrialist, once said, "If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right." Many students cannot achieve their full potential because they are weighed down by their doubts and fears. They don't believe they have what it takes to score distinctions. Are you one of them? If you fit the bill, it is time for you to change your mindset and protect yourself from the adverse influence of pessimism. You can start doing so by transforming into the valiant knight!
Topics
- Anecdotes
- Article Featured
- erpz News
- Headlines
- Lifehack
- Mind Tricks
- Reading Packs
- Reviews
- Stuff
- Tackling Tests
Study Resources
- Caught In Geog
- Cliffs Notes
- Economics Help
- Fiveless A Levels Notes
- Mastering Maths
- Mises Institute
- Mr Koh's Maths Site
- Progress in GP
- SparkNotes
- Tutor2u
Friends' Sites & Blogs
Writer's Blogs
- Dan Gilbert's Blog
- Freakonomics Blog
- John Kay
- Julian Baggini's Blog
- Malcolm Gladwell
- Michael Perelman
- Paul Krugman
- Robert Skidelsky
- Tim Harford
Academic Blogs
- Becker Posner Blog
- Daily Capitalist
- Marginal Revolution
- Modeled Behavior
- The Good News Economist
- Tran Harry Economics 101
- Twenty Cent Paradigms
Recent Comments
- Morality & Incentives « ERPZ on The Question of Pay
- Kevin on The Question of Pay
- Derrick Tan on The Question of Pay
- Daily SG: 8 Sep 2011 « The Singapore Daily on Failure of Competition
- georgeyeo -not that guy on From Sarcasm to Absurdum