EDITOR – “Men caught stealing from recycling bin” was the heading of one of your news items last week. I was expecting to read an article which included at least some small element of compassion for people so desperate that they were reduced to stealing recycled paper, for which a miserable fee is paid to those who try to earn a pittance by collecting it.
By their very nature, of course, news items aim at conveying the objective facts, but the Berea Mail, being a community newspaper, often does more than that in focusing on humanness and compassion and helping to create awareness of matters we should care about. It was entirely appropriate to make the men clear up the mess that had apparently been created by them, but laying a charge? Is it really necessary to lay a formal charge against people who are clearly desperately poverty-stricken? Stealing paper and making a mess are anti-social acts, but this particular level of crime does not happen in a vacuum, nor do hardened criminals bother to steal from a recycling facility.
There are no doubt those who feel these men got their just desserts, but most of us have not walked in the shoes of pitifully needy people like these recycling bin thieves. Such a punitive response as this is not justified. It is entirely out of proportion to the crime and will create an even greater sense of despair, and no doubt some bitterness, which will add to the bitterness already mounting in our unequal society. After clearing up the mess they had made, these men could have been made to spend a few hours cleaning up litter in one of our litter-strewn areas as an appropriate social action. What happened to making the punishment fit the crime? One cannot know their backgrounds, but they do not sound like hardened criminals, since their gains would have been too pitiful to interest such people. I am no means supporting theft, nor am I being inappropriately soft-hearted. I realise how irritating it is for Mondi to suffer ongoing recycled paper thefts that leave the place in a mess, understandably irritating local residents. But with our huge unemployment rate and our excessively overpaid top earners, we are a society in jeopardy. There are many people in pain.
Don’t let’s make it worse by over-reaction. There are better ways of dealing with this level of wrong-doing.
Shirley Bell
