Crime and punishment. That is the essence of the Penal Code, a legal code governing crimes and their punishment. But with crimes evolving and taking in more forms, some new ones emerging and yet the society has to keep them in check, there is always a need to keep the country’s penal code abreast with the times.

The government has started the process of amending the 1997 Penal Code to deal with the increasing new forms of crime, introduce stringent penalties for some forms of crimes whose punishments have proven lenient over time as well as attend to the anticipated changes in the law on legal abortion whose amendment process has started.

The review of the Penal Code will also be expected to address issues of overlapping penalties and obsolete provisions.

The government summarises the key focus in the upcoming revision to evolve around economic crimes, environmental crimes, sexual offences, human trafficking, terrorism, drug trafficking, conspiracy, aiding and abetting, concealment and corruption-related crimes.

However, whereas it is one thing to know about a crime, one cannot say the same of the consequent punishment.

Common sense dictates that the two go hand-in-hand, and must be known in equal measure, not just by law enforcers, but also the entire citizenry.

The Rwandan leadership has quite a number of homegrown concepts at its disposal to disseminate knowledge of such developments as the review of the Penal Code. Take for instance, the monthly community-based voluntary work, Umuganda. Leaders often use this as a platform to reach out to the people through thematic concepts during the activity.

Using Umuganda and other homegrown initiatives to sensitise the public about the Penal Code after it is revised would go a long way in letting the people know where they stand if they made any wrong steps. This would be like hitting two birds with one stone.

Naturally, it’s easier for a human to think twice about a punishment than the crime. Sensitising the public on both will help combat crime in societies.