Any crime is, by its very definition an act of evil. There will always be evil in the world and we must be prepared to swiftly deal with it when it happens, BUT we need to deal with it intelligently and attack the root cause of the problem at the same time as we deal with the symptoms.
American army psychologist Gustav Gilbert after World War II spent a lot of time trying to understand and study the Nazi defendants at Nuremburg, to try and understand how human beings could be so monstrous to other people and he came up with what is really the best definition of evil.
Evil is the complete and total lack of empathy for your fellow human beings. Once you remove empathy, nothing is impossible, because you simply do not care anymore about anyone else or the consequences.
It is simply at that point a matter of determining if this was a momentary mistake that won’t be repeated (i.e. a perfect storm of factors, etc), or part of a larger pattern of behavior to decide if the person should be able to be rehabilitated or simply punished.
That is not to say that there aren’t momentary mistakes that don’t deserve punishment. A lot of irreparable harm and destruction can be done in a single crime that requires a severe and long term punishment. And there are career petty criminals that might be able to be rehabilitated on occasion.
I’ve said for many years that as much hard work as some criminals put into doing things the illegal way, if they were shown the proper path, they might be very successful in a legally and morally acceptable line of work.
I believe there is a lot of truth to the saying that “idle hands work for the devil”. Human beings need a sense of purpose, a reason to get up in the morning and face the day beyond their own selfish (don’t mean that in a bad way) needs of money, food, clothing, housing, etc. Having a sense of purpose, and feeling needed or wanted, is a major key to happiness, and truly happy and content people do not commit crimes.
As I already discussed earlier and will not re-hash, our global economy has become very specific in terms of its needs in the age of computers, and the days where people could pick their own major without regard for whether they will have economic prospects after graduating, or choose to drop out of high school, or choose to not do any kind of schooling after high school are over and never coming back.
The first thing we need to do is make sure we do not allow a permanent under-class to be created by people dropping out and choosing instead to live off of either the government or a life of crime. President George W Bush was correct when he stated that we cannot afford to leave any child behind…the key is how we go about making that work.
The first step in permanently eliminating as much crime as possible is the massive investment (monetarily, emotionally, and societally) in education that I discussed earlier, coupled with the lifelong guidance process to make sure that we shepherd our children into those jobs and careers that they like, yet that also fill a need in society.
But that education must go beyond books and test scores to include how to behave in society and how to treat each other. It is just as important if not more so.
At my daughter’s elementary school they teach about the 6 pillars of character throughout the school year from the time they start kindergarten, but because it isn’t consequential to their continuing onto the next grade level, many kids aren’t even phased by it and go right back out to the playground or classroom or hallway and behave poorly. The concept is correct, it is the follow through with real consequences and meaning that is lacking.
That massive focus on academic and social education will deal with the root problem of so many crimes over time. In the meantime, what do we do about all the symptoms of the problem? It all comes down to if you believe that people can be rehabilitated or need to just be locked away. As usual, the truth is somewhere in the middle.
We have a strong Puritanical streak in us as a nation that lends itself more towards the punishment side of the equation, and as a result it is reflected in our approach to dealing with convicted criminals.
For instance, I mentioned when discussing education earlier that we build schools in this country the way we build prisons….we wait until they are over-crowded and falling apart. As a result there isn’t much that our prisons can do beyond just keep them locked away.
There is very little rehabilitation going on in American prisons, and sadly as we all joke, many criminals go in as amateurs and come out as professionals. That is largely why the recidivism rate is so high.
Did you know that within 3 years of release, about two thirds (67.8%) of released prisoners were re-arrested? Within 5 years that rate goes up to 76.6%. Just in the first year alone after being released from prison over 56.7% were re-arrested.
Today in America there are over 2 million people in prison, with another 4+ million on probation/parole, for about 1% of our total population. Over 50% of the world’s total prisoners are in jail in either the US, Russia, or China. That is not company that we want to be associated with.
Furthermore, our incarceration rate is 724 per 100,000, the highest in the world. Russia is #2 at 581 per 100,000. A country like Great Britain is more around 150 per 100,000, and that is the middle range.
But there is so much more to why particular people commit crimes beyond lack of education and economic opportunity or because they were imprisoned without rehabilitation and learned how to be a better criminal. We know enough now from a medical and scientific standpoint that brain chemistry and genetic makeup can play a huge part in whether someone has violent or amoral tendencies as well.
We need to do a far better job of identifying, helping, and monitoring from an early age anyone with mental or emotional health issues so that they can have every opportunity to beat the deck that is stacked against them.
Anyone can make the right choice when they are feeling good and have everything going for them in life, but unless we have been in the shoes of someone in the throes of severe depression or PTSD, we really don’t have room to judge.
We as a society, including the government where possible and practical, needs to do everything in our power to rehabilitate convicted prisoners and help those of us who are suffering and prevent them from falling through the cracks.
I’m so beyond tired of hearing about how some mass shooter kept to themselves or had recently withdrawn from society.
Most crimes are preventable.
We have to be willing to do the work, both individually and as a society to achieve that, otherwise we all have blood on our hands to some degree.
Perry Waag 