We had a meeting with all the senior people during the week concerning the person who had been stealing RAM etc from the hub and the ensuing events afterwards.
I know I may be wrong in this and stand to be corrected in the approach but I honestly felt it was appropriate to 'challenge' the culturally accepted view that thieves should be severely punished when caught.
I appreciate that I am coming at this from my own 'privileged' background and that is always baggage laden. However to be honest extreme punishment for thievery is not just a developing world phenomena - go into any disadvantaged area in Dublin and ask what happens to thieves caught stealing from their own!
Anyway, we had an open conversation with everyone and it evolved into a learning exercise for everyone.
We all agreed that we need a process and a set of procedures to handle theft and that beating the person senseless was not appropriate.
However, people really did feel that a thief should not be allowed back into hub once caught.
We had a discussion on restorative justice (thanks for that suggestion Liam!) and people seemed genuinely open to engaging with the idea. However, we did struggle to find an appropriate task or set of tasks that a thief could do to repay their debt.
People however are now thinking about the issues from a human rights perspective and I think that is a small step forward.
The part of the discussion that was most challenging was when the issue of Islamic law and justice came up. I always struggle when Religious rules mix with justice issues. To be fair though, Islamic law does claim to ensure justice is served appropriately following a lot of consultation with everyone involved in a crime.
I was tempted to tell the story of Jesus asking the stone throwers about to stone a woman to death 'who amongst you can cast the first stone....'
but thought better of it....;)
(....for the time being anyway...)
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