NCJ Number
90773
Journal
Revue internationale de criminologie et de police technique Volume: 34 Issue: 2 Dated: (April-June 1981) Pages: 143-152
Date Published
1981
Length
10 pages
Annotation
Cameroon criminal codes (in force since 1967 and based on the French colonial model) have failed to find a compromise with indigenous customs and appear on the contrary to be repressing traditional behaviors in a misguided effort to enforce social and economic development.
Abstract
This is particularly evident in the severe penalties levied against behaviors deemed negative, such as sorcery, mendacity, participation in secret societies, bigamy, and other acts grounded in the traditional social heritage. These policies raise crime levels, encourage disrespect for the law, and fail to satisfy the people's sense of justice. Instead, preventive approaches should be developed in the form of public education programs, tapping grassroots participation through juvenile and women's organizations, political movements, and even traditional associations. Furthermore, local administration of justice should provide conciliation and dispute settlement services. Less use should be made of incarceration, the principal penalty in European cultures. Alternative penalties should be sought both more and less severe, but better attuned to the indigenous sense of justice, which was traditionally expressed through measures ranging from the death penalty to banishment and various forms of restitution and repair of damages. The African concept of justice, which seeks to reinstate the balance existing prior to the commission of the crime, should be used as the basic tenet of reforms to the currently foreign and unsatisfactory penalty system. Photographs and 10 footnotes are provided.