For the speedy resolution of wars, insurgency and other conflicts, the concept of “Winning Hearts and Minds” is used in modern times. It means that one side is trying to win the conflict not by the use of superior force, but by making emotional or intellectual appeals to convince supporters of the other side.
The idea behind it is that if you convince the other side of the sense of your actions, then you need to fight less and you will ultimately be MUCH more effective, efficient AND there will be less victims.
Our (previous) government made a weak attempt in using this strategy in early days. We were told that laws can’t be enacted to prevent people from breaking the lockdown and Simon Harris kept telling us that we should just hold together for one more push before things would get better.
The current government is clearly taking a different route. Laws are suddenly possible and they are in place and are used a LOT. This week the RTE News reported that the crazy amount of 4500 people have been fined for breaching Covid-19 regulations. www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2021/0205/1195336-garda-restrictions-fines/
The total amount of serious crimes that lead to a charge or summons in 2019 was just measly 550 and out of more than 16,000 burglaries that happened, it seems that just 13 were punished appropriately, based on Central Statistics Office details. www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-rcd/recordedcrimedetection2019/crimesleadingtochargeorsummons/
I really hope that I am misinterpreting the numbers and that someone can tell me that I made a big mistake, but if not, then this means that breaking the (random) 5km movement restriction is pursued with significantly more vigor than burglaries. :-O
I think we can clearly say that the government has lost the support from the people. Maybe a serious “Winning Hears and Minds” approach would have us in a different place?
