GRAFFITI – in many overseas countries this phenomenon has become a tolerated if not approved aspect of modern society.
Those who have travelled to Australia, for example, will be familiar with the many kilometres of highway and railway walls that have become exhibition space for graffitists.
Councils set aside walls in parks for these people to express themselves and some have even organised graffiti exhibitions.
Skating arenas in parks are a favourite graffiti display area, as are the walls of the many abandoned buildings to be found in inner city industrial and commercial areas.
Widely respected chief PNG psychiatrist Dr Goiba Tienang has made it clear that those addicted to the production of graffiti have behavioural and conduct disorders.
The doctor linked graffiti with troubled minds and unstable families.
Graffiti has come into prominence following comments by Justice Minister Dr Allan Marat. He is intent on bringing forward a new Act to provide for stronger action against people who damage public property, including vandalism through graffiti.
He added offenders might be sent straight to jail rather than have the chance to appear in court, saying that this “could save time and resources”.
The two statements mirror differing approaches to the problem.
It seems that Dr Marat, who has a reputation for advocating a strict application of our laws, wants to stamp out graffiti by strengthening the applicable laws.
There appears to be little evidence to support the often repeated theory that stronger laws act as a stronger deterrent.
On the contrary, some would argue that the stronger the penalties for creating graffiti, for example, the stronger the challenge to our youngsters to accept the dare and break the law.
And we do not see graffiti as such a major threat to society to warrant the removal of the rights of any PNG citizen to be regarded as innocent until and unless he or she has been found guilty by a properly constituted court of law.
Dr Tienang, on the other hand, is using the psychiatric background to graffiti as a platform to urge the Government to address his medical area, mental health.
Successive health department administrations have created a number of black holes in the health system.
Most notably these include dentistry, only now recovering from decades of inattention; ophthalmology, covering the fields of eye surgery and the healthy maintenance of healthy vision and mental health.
The latter field, as we wrote this week in our defence of Laloki Hospital as PNG’s sole mental health specialist facility, has been and continues to be one of the most neglected fields of all.
The points of view put forward by the psychiatrist and the politician mirror the views of our society.
Dr Tienang makes it clear that those who vandalise through graffiti are suffering from a psychiatric disorder. The normal corollary of such a diagnosis is to devise or access appropriate treatment; psychiatric disorders and physical illnesses both require medical interventions of one kind or another.
He is pleading on behalf of the hidden thousands who suffer from a greater or lesser degree of medical illness. He is seeking recognition from the Government that mental disorders require as much, if not more attention than most other medical conditions in our country.
To condemn graffitists to jail without trail is not acceptable.
Nor in our opinion does it
sit well with the role of a ministry supposedly committed to the dispensation of “justice”.
The great fear is that incarceration of graffitists without trial may lead to the jailing of a whole range of alleged criminals denied their day in court.
Our courts are choked with cases but we do not believe changing the basic precepts of justice will solve that situation.
There has been mounting pressure from a variety of sources for our society to view all arrested and charged persons as guilty until and unless they can prove their innocence.
To institute such a reversal in PNG would, in our opinion, spell the end of democracy and the destruction of true justice for ordinary people.
What is needed is a greatly expanded mental health service and a recognition that specialist psychiatrists like Dr Tienang cannot battle on single-handedly against odds that are becoming insurmountable.