"The Lost Boys of Phnom Penh"

[Dasa]

Todays Foreign Correspondent had a very interesting story on Cambodian refugees and how many have been sent back to Cambodia from the US after having been accepted as refugees because they've committed a crime or two. The episode synopsis:

Originally Posted by ABC

‘Hawaii’ – as he is nicknamed – draws anxious glances on the streets of Phnom Penh. Tattooed and dressed like an LA gangster, he struts through the Cambodian capital to the beat of American rap music.

“I thought I was just a normal American kid”, Hawaii told reporter Evan Williams. But he couldn’t have been more wrong: Hawaii was born in Cambodia, though to look at him you would never know it.

His family escaped the horrors of Pol Pot and fled to the United States as refugees when Hawaii was just seven months old. Impoverished and isolated from mainstream American culture, Hawaii grew up to pursue a life of crime and was jailed for dealing drugs.

Caught out by a new ‘get tough’ policy on migrant crime, Hawaii, along with over a hundred other young Cambodian-born men, was deported from the United States back to his country of origin. Another 1400 Cambodian refugees in the US are awaiting deportation.

In today’s America, if you commit one major crime or two minor crimes and don’t hold an American passport, you’ll do your jail time, and then be put on the first flight ‘home’ – even if ‘home’ is a country you left as a refugee when still a child.

“It’s double jeopardy”, according to Hawaii, “Why you going to
f.... somebody’s life up when he already paid for his f.... up – know what I’m saying – when he already paid for his crime”.

As aid worker Bill Herod - one of the few people trying to help young men like Hawaii - argues: “The US can’t take responsibility for everything, but it seems to me that when we accept groups of people as political refugees accepting them suggests some obligation to take care of them”.

I think this issue brings up several points of discussion. Firstly, when a nation accepts refugees should they be able to deport them whenever they wish when they haven't provided any assistance whatsoever for the refugees to gain citizenship (or a green card). Interestingly, many of these refugees who were (and are being) deported have no practical knowledge of Cambodia, having gone to the US as infants and growing up pretty much as Americans.

Another issue one of the deported people in the story brings up is the problem of the refugees who settled in the US having very little knowledge of the country and speaking little English - this resulted in them forming 'ghettos' consisting of people living in poverty (due to having virtually no job prospects) which in turn led to problems with gangs, drugs and violence. This leads to most of those being deported being people who have had problems with drugs and violence and the like being deported to Cambodia. This has reportedly led to an increase in drug crime and related problems in Cambodia.
According to the story, the US govt only managed to "strong-arm" the Cambodian govt into accepting these deportees by threatening to cut off visas for Cambodians wishing to visit or settle in the US.

To me that this whole situation is a disgrace - the US govt has basically accepted people in order to provide for them 'a better life' while having no support systems in place whatsoever, and then when these people have (naturally) turned to illegal means in order to survive, they've just sent them back somewhere where they have little knowledge of the culture, the language or anything.

[Shounak]

Yeah I agree it is **** poor. For refugee's like that..

But you're making it sound like it's nobodies fault that he goes into crime. He should cop the punishment for whatever he did. He knew the laws and he broke them. He should be punished as harshly as you or I. His upbringing shouldn't soften his jail sentence in the US at all.

How old is this guy, out of interest?

[Dasa]

Originally Posted by shounak

Yeah I agree it is **** poor. For refugee's like that..

But you're making it sound like it's nobodies fault that he goes into crime. He should cop the punishment for whatever he did. He knew the laws and he broke them. He should be punished as harshly as you or I. His upbringing shouldn't soften his jail sentence in the US at all.

He and others interviewed/spoken about on the program have already served their time. You bring up another issue there - how useful is prison if it doesn't rehabilitate? However, I disagree with you that upbringing shouldn't have any effect on jail sentences and the like. You can't just have generalise and assume everyone will be affected in the same way by prison and such.

Originally Posted by shounak

How old is this guy, out of interest?

They didn't give his age, but he couldn't have been over 25. Same as most of those being deported.

[Slow Love™]

Well, I agree with what the aid worker said at the end.

I'm assuming they were formally recognized as refugees - is it the case that they never fully naturalised? This is a bit of a public education issue - it's probably the case with some that they think the residency they've been granted is the full stop in the sense of being "an American citizen".

I'm never in favor of these kinds of Compulsory with a capital C kind of sentencing laws when it comes to "category" crimes though. Too often they simply don't result in justice.

[BoyBrumby]

The US has been doing it for years. IIRC a very famous gangland figure ("Lucky" Luciano? Possibly) was deported to Italy after completing his sentence as he was Italian-born & not a US citizen. Obviously he came to the US as an economic migrant rather than a refugee, so the case isn't directly comparable per se, but if Cambodia is now considered quote-unquote safe the essential principle is the same. I am not condoning it, I hasten to clarify, merely pointing out it isn't a recent development.

In the UK at least refugees are able to apply for citizenship after a period of residence (can't recall how long, 4 years seems to ring a bell, but so does 7... ), but it isn't awarded automatically. Something similar may be true in the US, but I would imagine crimes committed whilst a resident may possibly mitigate against it being granted.

Recently there was a widely-reported case (mentioned on here in the "Dangerous Attitudes" thread) where the Western Australian authorities deported a 66 year old career pederast to the UK, despite his having spent the last 57 of those years in Oz. The impulse to pass on the problem seems to be fairly universal.

[Shounak]

Dasa, I see it differently. He was an adult who knowingly committed a crime. He should do the time like anyone else would..

Should people from the ghetto's like him received reduced sentences and if someone like me committed the same crime, should I receive a greater one? I certainly don't think so..

[Anil]

Originally Posted by shounak

Dasa, I see it differently. He was an adult who knowingly committed a crime. He should do the time like anyone else would..

Should people from the ghetto's like him received reduced sentences and if someone like me committed the same crime, should I receive a greater one? I certainly don't think so..

should insane people be punished the same way for a crime as sane people? in a civilized society, you should also look at the situation that motivated a person to commit a crime and if there are mitigating circumstances(need not necessarily always be which strata of society they come from but that is certainly a factor), they should be taken into account while handing out the punishment....

[Shounak]

Originally Posted by Anil

should insane people be punished the same way for a crime as sane people? in a civilized society, you should also look at the situation that motivated a person to commit a crime and if there are mitigating circumstances(need not necessarily always be which strata of society they come from but that is certainly a factor), they should be taken into account while handing out the punishment....

If it can be clinically diagnosed, fair enough..

But the guy's an adult who knew what the crime was.. I don't think he was mentally ill or anything..

I don't think being mentally ill and being brought up in a ghetto are analogous WRT sentencing..

[Anil]

Originally Posted by shounak

I don't think being mentally ill and being brought up in a ghetto are analogous WRT sentencing..

not directly analogous true, but considering that they are both factors which should go into the determination of the seriousness of a crime and therefore the punishment, it is a pertinent example..

[Shounak]

But mentally ill people aren't sentenced less. Just differently.

This guy at our uni went crazy with a gun in an Econometrics Tute. He was found mentally ill and received a sentence of Not Guilty due to mental illness apparently. All that meant was that he's serving 25 years in a fairly high security mental instituition instead of a jail.

Genuine mentally ill people are dealt sentences in a hospital for rehabilitation. So it doesn't really determine the punishment, the nature of the punishment maybe. But if upbringing was an excuse, the court's would become much more creative..