It will be greatly appreciated if you can place the following story in your newspaper and ask the public in Alberton how they feel about this.
I know it broke my heart, and I see the incident, over and over, in my mind’s eye, and I wonder what went wrong, in this, our beloved country South Africa?
This is what happened.
On a day last week, at about 2am, my wife and I were in a grocery store.
As we walked out from the checkouts, the security at the main doors apprehended a young man, which I set at between 15 and 18. As the security guard escorted the young man to the back of the store, and to the lock-up room, he pulled out two packets (which I could see), of merchandise, which looked like either small sausage rolls or small Swiss rolls.
My heart went out to this young man, for either he was hungry, or he had siblings or a mother at home, and they were hungry, and he had no money, to pay for the merchandise. As I worked for a big chain store group before retiring, I knew what would follow.
The police would be called, a case of shoplifting would be laid against the young man and he will get a criminal record, which will rule him out to ever find a job in the open market. Thus making him just another criminal in South Africa.
Now I wondered, what if? What if the manager of the store had taken this young man and have him clean the back storage areas, or the butchery, or the bakery, or the fish shop?
Let him work for two hours until the manager is happy that the work given to him is done to the manager’s satisfaction. Then give him the merchandise which he took.
Now would that not have been a better option? Would the manager, instead of creating a lifelong criminal, not have created a young man who will know, that in order to get something, you will have to work for it. On top of this, the manager gets his/her store clean, especially the back areas which is so easily overlooked.
Carl
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