REVISITING MY POST "CRIME AND PUNISHMENT"
Including a Visit to Real Art from a Romanian!!!

God, I love the internet.

From the Romanian blog MydaysMyMind, an off-the-cuff response to this Real Art greatest hit:

Surfing the Internet I came across a blog that looked interesting and I began to read. And I read, and read till I got to the Crime and Punishment post. I read it once and then again, and again, to make sure I understand what this guy dilemma is.

To make long story short: he has been asked to fulfill his duty to be a part of a jury court in a case where a 27yo mother killed her 7 yo child because she had an argument with her concubine/ husband/ whatever and he didn't came home.

Our blogger dilemma is that he couldn't fulfill his duty cause in his eyes, the reclusion system sucks (in a nutshell: OZ or even worse). So you can understand. This guy is seriously rising the problem that he couldn't put in jail that woman due to the inhumane conditions found in American prisons. I mean, that woman killed her child... no... let forget about this phrasing... That human being killed another - defenseless! - human being and this guy has mind twisting processes and congratulates himself that in the end didn't had to attend that trial.

OK! Prison is not the happiest place on Earth. Let's suppose that American jails are hell on earth. Than how should we punish murder? Or rape? Or pedophilia? Am I nuts if I find it normal that once you commit a MURDER you have to pay - if not with your life (I'm not for death penalty either) - at least with your freedom?

It's the same principle for everything in life: cause and effect. In this case the cause is the murder, jail - the effect. What should happen'? Should we have mercy? Poor girl lost her minds because she had a fight with the boyfriend the sliced (ok, suffocate!) the child's throat... she couldn't cope with the stress...

Come on people!

I promise that faced with a strong argument I shall admit my social Neanderthal thinking.

Click here for the original. Actually, I've posted the entire essay, but I'm linking to it just in case you wanted to see that such an essay actually exists, or, if you prefer, here is the version as it first appeared in Romanian. Thanks, by the way, to Romanian blogger Cris for translating her post at my request.

My response to Cris' response:

First off, thanks very much for visiting my blog. You may not agree with everything I say, but the fact that you "read, and read" means that you were at the very least interested in what I have to say--because my blog is an extension of my ego to some extent, I'll take that as an ego boost.

Anyway, here are a few thoughts on what you wrote.

I wasn't ever really so worried that I "couldn't fulfill (my) duty" as much as I was worried that my moral dilemma would make fulfilling my civic duty problematic at best, and immoral at worst. That is, part of the jury assembly process in the United States is to ensure that jurors are able to approach their duty in an emotionally detached and unbiased way. For instance, a mother killing her own child is a horrible outrage and crime against all humanity, and many people simply cannot separate their own anger about such murders from the intellectual consideration needed to fairly determine guilt or innocence--several potential jurors were dismissed that day for exactly that reason. Same thing with me, but because of my stance on a different issue, the utterly inhumane condition of US prisons: I was sincerely worried that my knowledge and total condemnation of the rapes, violence, substandard health care, and other issues concerning our prisons, especially the notion of punishment itself, would make it very difficult to simply say "guilty" or "innocent." That is, I'm not sure how I would handle having on my conscience sending anyone into such torturous conditions--your assertion that "prison is not the happiest place on Earth" is an extraordinary understatement; you'd be much closer to the mark if you said that US prisons are among the most unhappy and unsafe places on Earth.

So I told the judge at the appropriate moment about my misgivings, and I was summarily dismissed.

But that's just quibbling, really. I think the central issue for our disagreement is how we conceptualize punishment and what society ought to do with criminals. It is important to note that you don't even question whether murderers ought to be punished. If I read you correctly, your belief is that killers should be punished because that's what they deserve. I've written at length about this concept, as well as the more generalized notion of good and evil, in terms of my non-acceptance of Christianity, in my post EASTER GRINCH, but here's the short version. I don't understand why punishment is what killers deserve. I don't get the point. In a sort of spiritual or cosmic sense, I don't believe there is such a thing as an individual who is beyond redemption or forgiveness. In a more pragmatic sense, I don't see how punishment helps society. That is, punishment doesn't appear to make criminals any less likely to commit crimes, either before or after the fact; clearly, removing violent elements from society at large is a rational thing to do, but punishing them appears to do nothing more than make people feel like life is somehow fair, or make them rest easier at night, or satisfies a public lust for vengeance.

Somehow, satisfying a lust for vengeance doesn't seem to justify the chronic violence in prison, which is tacitly approved by prison authorities, and therefore by the government and society. Torture is wrong, whether the victim is a real, honest-to-god terrorist, or a mother who killed her own child. Like I told the judge, I understand that society has to do something to keep the streets safe, but it is a problem indeed to require law-abiding citizens to bless such state sanctioned torture with their own participation.

In short, this woman committed a heinous act, and I wholeheartedly approve of confining her in order to keep the streets safe; I do not, however, believe that "punishing" her, subjecting her to dangers well above and beyond simple incarceration, will do a damned thing other than make her more evil.

What we ought to be doing is trying to get serious about truly reforming criminals, using massive amounts of social intervention and psychology, throwing in lots of education. I'm quite sure that this is ultimately an impossible task, in terms of achieving a 100% reform rate, but well worth it, in terms of national morality, and in terms of turning a social liability, criminals, into social assets, productive citizens.

Until this happens, however, ethical Americans are just going to have to do the best they can when placed into this dilemma. I really was willing to serve on that jury, but I wanted to be honest about what was going on in my head. Further, whatever anybody says about this, it is extremely difficult for me to avoid my own morality, my own personal responsibility. If I had actually served, and voted the defendant "guilty," I would have been personally responsible for sending her into a potentially very dangerous situation. Given all the issues at play here, I'm still not sure whether doing that would be right or wrong.

Finally, you say that I congratulated myself for not serving on the jury. Well, that's not quite true: if I was congratulating myself, it was for standing up for what I believe to be right while in the presence of 70 or so people who totally and passionately disagree with me. You have no idea what it was like to proclaim to a room full of people that my philosophy makes it difficult for me to help convict a child killer--it would have been so much easier to have simply kept my mouth shut.

I'm proud of myself to this day, and I hope I'd do the same thing again under similar circumstances.

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