Saturday's
STAR story about 'A bunch of revenge' has its humorous points, but there is a very serious message as well.
As the story goes, Linton Scott pleaded guilty to stealing a bunch of plantains from a farm in Amity Hall, St James, telling the presiding judge at the Montego Bay Resident Magistrate's Court last Wednesday that he took the fruit because he was underpaid when he worked on that farm.
That reason, of course, as justified as Scott must have felt he was, was no justification, although the judge waived further punishment for Scott as he had already spent nine days in custody.
In the wider context of Jamaica's staggering murder rate, a stolen bunch of plantains is easy to overlook. However, the principle of seeking satisfaction for a wrong, real or imagined, through illegal means is not. Not in a country where so much of the incessant carnage stems from revenge.
A wrong cannot be redressed outside the law without the perpetrator expecting to face the consequences if the vengeful action is detected.
There is another lesson to be learnt as well, this from the farmer whose plantains were stolen and which he seemed remarkably determined to trace - which he did successfully. In so many in-stances, cases of praedial larceny end in mob killings, but this time the court system was utilised, as it should be.
Oh. The stolen bunch of plantains, which had been sold for $450, was returned.
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