World Youth Days, which begin on July 26, to be a great spiritual experience. It turns out – as a result of the query made by us in five parishes from Mazovia, Pomerania and Lower Silesia – the Poles’ interest in participating in the event is less than the assumed church leaders, politicians and officials. Young people prefer to watch the World Youth Day in television. They do not want to become an easy target for terrorists. Assurance Interior Minister Mariusz Blaszczak, it will be safe, little give. Poles know her, regardless of the probability scale bombing. Much of the credit of politicians, who in recent years has almost mastered the management of the fears of the people. Today collect the fruit.
Fear programmed
Half of 2000. Lech Kaczynski, the former president of the Supreme Chamber of Control, temporarily outside of politics, going by train classes with the students. At some point, he receives a phone call from his wife, who informs him that it will be a moment to call him Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek. The head of government wanted to make Kaczynski was justice minister. It begins with the best time politically for the future president. It becomes sheriff uphold public order, the Poles see it as the only bright spot of the government AWS.
Lech Kaczynski Poles protects against bandits every day. The regularity with which organized conferences minister of justice, deserves respect. On Monday, we learn the story of the murder, on Tuesday we learn about the brutal rape, Wednesday is information about the fatal beating, murder on Thursday again, and on Friday tiny summary of the week. Each of the instances is topped with an indication of what needs to be done to Poland live safer. Top toughen penalties.
It may seem that the Poles, believing in the efficacy of the sheriff, they felt safer. Be that as we lived in the belief that someone defends us from bandits. It turns out, however, that was the opposite. In the autumn of 2000. In a study conducted by the CBOS much as 82 percent. respondents answered “no” to the question of whether Poland is a country in which he lives safe. In just 12 months the percentage of negative responses increased by nearly 20 percent. This number far exceeds the statistical error. And there appeared the information about the terrorist attacks, as we were before the tragic events in New York. Simply put, national events caused that 1/5 of Poles who believed until recently that Poland is safe, she changed her mind.
theory that tried to explain the increase of insecurity, made many years ago prof. Jan Widacki, a former member of the SLD. In his opinion, the key was the role he adopted Lech Kaczynski. “Style carried out by the said minister of this campaign, the conflict with the scientific legal, same frequency of public appearances minister and his advisers, commenting on it in the media every single case of a drastic crime that was committed a population of nearly 40 million inhabitants, Poland (which ensures a sufficient number of single drastic cases), its spectacular personnel decisions in the prosecution offices – all this caused the threat of crime and the alleged necessity of draconian penalties for its prevention, for which openly advocated minister, has become one of the most important topics in the media. This had certainly two consequences: the popularity of the minister and proportional to the increase in the level of insecurity in society. The latter is the more drive it first. Minister fully deserves the title of “administrator of fear ‘” – said prof. Widacki in one of his publications.
Tactics Lech Kaczynski proved effective. On the wave of his popularity was founded Law and Justice. The Minister of Justice was first mayor of Warsaw and the Polish president.
Lesson beyond boundaries
Creating fear is bipartisan. It is not that the PiS is doing something wrong, and the Civic Platform or Modern work perfectly.
It is believed that this right-wing parties support the expanding catalog of penalties or increase their size. And yet – what notes Dr. Paul Waszkiewicz from the Department of Criminology at the University of Warsaw, author of the “Treaty on good crime prevention” – just remember who was in Poland for the penalization of having a small amount of drugs for personal use. All parts, including the SLD. We also have examples of US President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who stricter penal policy saw the solution to the problems. The division on the right hand and the left is so in this case purely illusory.
Another example: the law of beasts. The project, which was publicized in the media on a monstrous scale, was taken in order to solve the problem of … two people. Despite the protests of specialists in the field of protection of human rights and constitutional law, the law was adopted by an overwhelming majority. – This bill is a perfect example of the fact that politicians – and all the options – are afraid to vote against solutions confrontational approach to the state of criminals. And that is the way of broken several articles of the Constitution? It is difficult – says Paul Waszkiewicz.
I was not after the law taken by the PiS government. Her driving force was theoretically liberal PO. It is indeed at this point to recall the statement of Stefan Niesiołowski (PO). He commented on the matter of amnesty of 1989., Which included, inter alia, convicted of the murder of four Mariusz Trynkiewicza. Niesiołowski, admitting the mistake many years ago, when supported amnesty, said: “Everyone thought that in 25 years he will die in this prison.”
So it’s not about criticism of one lot, but pay attention to the general problem of turning politicians into statesmen providential. This brings much more harm than good. Lech Falandysz on the mechanism of providential man had already said in 2001.
“The mechanism of this phenomenon is more or less: at risk of crime, we demand severe punishment. Comes the great reformer, longed for a savior, which exacerbates the Criminal Code and issue guidelines to law enforcement authorities. Authorities are not stupid, and those recommendations carry in a specific way. (…) And skimmed those raking easiest who require long-term efforts. Why chase without success for professionals, since within reach of so many helpless, drunks, drug addicts and other paupers “- wrote Falandysz in” Wprost “.
Serif
Research CBOS, which we mentioned earlier, conducted in 2000, are no exception. The fact that we feel less safe when we are shown the cases of violent crime, even in the context of combating them is natural. The mechanism tells us Dr. Paul Waszkiewicz.
– Research shows that the more control at airports, the more cameras on the streets, the people feel less safe. It is a paradox that the installation of monitoring is generally desired by the citizens, while reducing their quality of life, because it reminds of the constant danger – indicates Waszkiewicz.
– “sheriffs” in politics, media publicizing any drastic crime does not increase the sense of security of the citizens. Quite the contrary. We hear about the killer, the best serial, and create a picture of the world in which these people lie in wait for our lives. Statistically, such a thought is manifestly ill-founded, but it just happens – he added.
What’s important, however, citizens themselves are muscling in the tentacles of a system to combat crime, even if it was extremely inefficient. Example? Monitoring. Dr. Waszkiewicz says that we are able to spend a lot in the name of security. We do not see it, because it happens gradually. But if someone asked the Poles in 1989, if they want, to the streets of the cities, their houses and workplaces were monitored by cameras whose image goes to monitoring centers, mocking the questioner. Now lightly puts thousands of devices to help us in the fight against crime. As he wrote for example the magazine “The Economist”, there is no connection between the increase in the number of devices for surveillance and a decrease in the number of crimes. The equipment – if it actually works, and the recording quality is good and will add a bit of luck – favors the detection of the perpetrator, and not to protect kidnapped or katowanego to death citizen.
love the theater
as the leading research conducted around the world show that the actual increase in the safety of citizens and the real decrease in crime depends more avid lanterns after dark than the fact that the killer will go behind bars for 25 instead of 15 years, why politicians as a rule, choose and implement the second option? The reasons are at least a few.
First, the most banal: it is easier to tighten penalties. Penal policy – the more radical the better – brilliantly sells in the media. Covers other topics, often those where the action is much more complicated. There is impossible to write a law that will guarantee the growth of export of Polish products to the West. But a bill that increases penalties for child molesters and murderers – no problem.
– Much better media sold discussion about increasing the penalties for the most serious crimes or cutting of the ribbon at the new management counterterrorism than debate about prevention and rehabilitation. We get a simple message going from politicians is wrong, but we defend you. We are not “wimps”, bandits have to be afraid of us – he notices Dr Paul Waszkiewicz.
Without a doubt, the Poles like a little theater: both in politics and security. This can be easily seen on the example of the control, which voluntarily surrender. This became particularly evident since the time when every citizen feels that he is on the front of the fight against terrorism.
– In many cases, we are dealing with theatricalization safety. The best example of this control at airports. We spend a lot of time checking luggage, control of people. And when checking the effectiveness of these systems, it turns out that it is negligible. Shuttle service is located at the fork retired and weapons or explosives are not caught. But people want to believe that the mechanisms used work that we are not defenseless against terrorism, about which so much said – confirms Dr. Paul Waszkiewicz.
Politicians only respond to public demand. Even if it is quite irrational.
– Because the world in which we live today is objectively less secure than 10, 20 or 50 years ago? Not necessarily, and even – at least according to police statistics published regularly – quite calm. Rising crime detection, and in Poland rather decreases the number of common actions, such as robberies and car theft. At the same time information portals, a picture emerges of endless brutal war, which killed innocent people – notes Catherine Szymielewicz, president of the Foundation Panoptykon.
Another reason why you can talk about spawning in citizens the sense of danger is the belief in what they say. That Lech Kaczynski turned up after all the only sheriff in order to grow its popularity. He believed that the hard hand, paying attention to irregularities and the tightening of sanctions will result in a decrease in crime. This thinking, which is guided by many politicians. Although they are wrong, they have solid grounds for doing so, to believe in their own words. Once that easily will be people that will confirm that increasing the penalties translates into a decrease in crime, and two – if that’s something we talk every day, we begin to believe it.
Current justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro draws from the teachings of Lech Kaczynski in clumps. Its business model begins to increasingly resemble the policy of the former minister and the president.
A separate entity
Paul Waszkiewicz in his “Treaty on good crime prevention” rightly points out that we can talk about the fact that the actual state of security is often a separate entity from the sense of security. For example, because the risk of becoming a victim of homicide committed by serial offender (approx. 1 to 40 million) is much smaller than the chance of winning six in Lotto (1 983 to 13 816). Yet both of these events stimulate our imagination, arouse emotions inversely proportional to the chances of their occurrence.
– forms part of the common psychological mechanism of assigning much higher probability than the actual phenomena of a rare but spectacular – emphasizes Waszkiewicz.
A politics of this – and more or less consciously – use.
the remedy for those at the beginning of the Polish concerns related to world Youth Day is to be Anti-Terror law. Even the manner of its adoption is amazing. At the time of writing all the time we have to deal with the bill. But we can not exclude that after 24 hours, when reading the text for the first interested, we will have already passed the law. Haste and desire to introduce new solutions – what is important, according to many experts inconsistent with the Constitution – is huge. United is also a desire to convince the public of the need to implement new and better security policy, which allows detection of crimes and catching the terrorists will be even better.
Among other things, because of the enormous pressure of authority for enactment of new legislation the Internet is rife with conspiracy theories: that the government is behind the recent false alarms bomb that charges planted at the police cars that ustawka having persuade citizens to support the anti-terror law etc. came even to the fact that when the last Wednesday in most courts in Poland announced alarms bomb, part of which was not carried out the evacuation. Authorities courts have recognized that they can not afford to be too frequent interruptions of work, and false information about the threat have become commonplace.
We ask the experts whether there is a link between the carrying by the Sejm bills designed to increase the safety (and simultaneously increase the powers of services) with an increased number of crimes disclosed in the media. We expect answers that are just conspiracy theories.
– It seems that such a correlation may exist. It should of course check. At the same time, however, it may be that we are more sensitive to situations that are affected by the new rules, and that is why we pay attention to the information on this. As a result, we believe that there are more – corresponds Dr. Paul Waszkiewicz.
On the other hand, Catherine Szymielewicz, president of Panoptykonu indicates that radical sentiment and fear of threats allow tightening of the law, which strikes in everyone, and the ruling gives convenient control tool. From the perspective of citizens – according Szymielewicz – however the way to the inevitable erosion of democratic values and fundamental freedoms.
– In this sense, it is not an exaggeration to say that measures taken in such acts as the Polish law anti-terrorism threaten us and our civilization more than Islamic terrorism – said president of Panoptykonu. And he adds that, unfortunately, usually we realize that this erosion actually takes place, when it is too late to reverse it. That specific constitutional law was necessary for us, we feel painfully, only when it – eg. As a result of the fight against crime – run.
When writing the article used the fragments of the “Treaty on good crime prevention” by dr. Paul Waszkiewicza.
& gt; & gt; & gt; Read also: Short lesson illiberal economics for non-technical. Interview with Marek Belka
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