Advert one, to be screened on MBC 1 just before the 19.30 news. Morbid background, ominous voice. Text goes as follows: ?In case you are thinking of killing your husband\wife\or the next door neighbour, this concerns you; you will spend the next forty-five years of your life locked up in a tiny cell. Detention conditions are not ideal, to say the least. Know also that, in case you think we might not be able to find you, that our determination to crack down on crime and criminals will make up for any lack of investigative skills we may have.?

Advert two, MBC 1. Same background, same ominous voice. Different text: ?You, on the other hand, might have this compulsion to rape women. Think twice next time the thought occurs to you. Because we will pursue people like you relentlessly and we will find you. Once we find you and you are convicted, you will be sent to rot in jail for at least the next twenty years of your life. You will find that rapists do not have a pleasant time in jail. Do you want to be next on the list? Think twice.?

How would you react to those ads if you saw them on TV? The question is relevant because you might soon be force-fed this kind of message by the MBC TV. Prime minister Navin Ramgoolam has decided that people needed to know what to expect whenever they felt the compulsion to break the law.

He revealed this on Saturday, saying: ?I told the commissioner of police that we must advertise penalties so that people know what to expect when they commit crimes; they need to know they will be locked up for a very long time?, he said at the passing-out parade of new police recruits at the Gymkhana in Vacoas last weekend.

We asked a prison officer ? let?s call him R. B ? who has dealt with detainees for the better part of the last thirty years if he thought that advertising penalties could be a deterrent to crime. Here?s what he has to say ? ?There is not one single reason that make people commit crime. If there were, then yes, the method would be effective but one doesn?t think about raping someone like one thinks about what one will have for dinner tonight. I have heard convicts boast about the way they have murdered, taking a perverted pleasure recounting the experience. I have also seen unhappy people who will spend the rest of their lives regretting that one maddening moment they lost control of their senses. It all depends on why you do the crime.?

For advertising penalties in the hope that this will scare people from committing crimes, is appealing to their reasoning power. Yet, most crimes are irrational, as psychologists could easily confirm. Does a rapist know it is wrong to rape? Does a murderer know it is wrong to murder? Does a robber know it is wrong to thieve? If they do know ? and professionals ? be they lawyers, police officers or prison officers, who have rubbed shoulders with criminals, agree that this is the question that needs to be asked, then why do they go ahead and do it anyway?

Use of deterrents</B>