The term ‘Deodand’ means “a chattel which, having caused the death of a person was formerly confiscated by the King and devoted to religious uses”. Generally, swords were used in the olden days in the dual fights.
The person, who would kill his opponent, was highly regarded in those days, and the sword used for killing the opponent, was given much honour and respect, and was kept before the God (Idol, temple).
Thus every capable person would dream to get such honour in the society, for which he was prepared to die in the opponent’s hands. It is a good example for “Crimes germinate within the society”.
image source: i.ytimg.com
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Kenny opined that the crimes are the creations of Government policy. He said: “The advent of a new political regime whether as the result of violent or non-violent revolution is usually followed by the creation of new crimes.
For example, it may become a crime to form any new political party, a crime to wear emblems or uniforms which could be mistaken for the insignia of the government; the political policy may be placed outside the jurisdiction of any Court, and empowered to treat as criminal and to take appropriate action thereon any conduct which they should regard as inimical to the established power; it may be the rule that no legal precedent is allowed to be any longer binding if it be not consistent with the official view of justice and equity, and so on.”
According to Kenny, even an autocrat may think not only of himself but also of the welfare of his subjects. He will include such harms in the class of crimes which may be harmful to large number of the people. It happens in aggravated form of Governments, viz., military rule, Nazi Rule, imperialistic colonial rule, etc. At the time of the British reign over India, the Indians were punished for uttering “Vande mataram”, “Janaganamana”, slogans for independence, etc.
But at the same time, the British rulers enacted certain statutes, i.e., the Child Restraint Marriage Act, Sati Prohibition Act, etc., for the welfare of the majority of the people.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
In the similar way, the White crushed the Negros in Africa. At that time, statutes were made regularising the trade of slaves. Now there is no slavery system. Blacks are also given equal rights.
In America weapons are sold without any conditions and permissions. School boys can also purchase revolvers. American Government adopted liberal policy in case of arms for civilians. Hence the criminal rate is higher in America.
A school boy killed his school teacher and co-students. Two Andhra Pradesh students were killed in December, 2007. Like these incidents are heard from America. Even now this culture has spread in India too. A school boy in Punjab killed his classmates with his father’s revolver in December, 2007.
According to the sociologists, even in the democratic countries also, majority of the crimes originate from the weakened sociological circumstances, government policies.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
They advocate that the criminals are born from the society only. To-day, we are observing the increased crime rate in India due to the political corruption, sociological degradation, Government’s indifference, etc.