The simpleton solution is to lock people up and throw away the key. I totally get that. But if the purpose of our criminal justice is “detention and rehabilitation,” then shouldn’t we celebrate success stories?
I’m asking a question today that I don’t know the answer to. Perhaps someone here will post a thoughtful reply and will sway my opinion.
It would be far easier to post the link to the salacious news story about John Hinkley, the would-be presidential assassin, performing a live concert in New York. This story is tailor-made for trolling and knee-jerk outrage. At first glance, it seems preposterous that a person who did so much harm and nearly murdered the President of the United States is now walking free and even making music, and money, as a performer.
In case you don’t know the full story, the attempted assassin of Ronald Reagan who shot and wounded the president and three others in a horrific 1981 assassination attempt, held his first music concert a few nights ago. Naturally, the public reaction was mostly hostile. Also, note that Hickley, who was found not guilty by reason of insanity at a 1982 jury trial, was given an unconditional release this year. In other words, he’s a free man.
I’ve thought more deeply about this matter after reading the initial report about Hickley’s sold-out show. Part of me looks at this as the ultimate case of redemption and recovery. What greater example of “rehabilitation” is there than the man who nearly killed a President becoming a productive person in society? Isn’t that a good thing? And what better example of success is there than a would-be murderer getting proper mental health treatment and then rejoining society?
The simpleton solution is to lock people up and throw away the key. I totally get that. But if the purpose of our criminal justice is “detention and rehabilitation,” then shouldn’t we celebrate success stories? Assuming Hickley continues to support himself and lives a reasonably productive life for his remaining years (he’s 67), why would we be outraged? It seems that we should acknowledge and then reinforce programs that made this possible (assuming Hickley is indeed fully recovered). That might not be a popular stand. But it’s the right decision.
So, I provided an outlier perspective on redemption, recovery, and forgiveness. But I will listen to alternative points of view. Please feel free to share them.
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Addendum: So far, the best response came from Thomas R. Hummel on Facebook. He wrote:
This is an interesting philosophical question. One way to look at life, in general, is that we are all constantly evolving. I’m certainly not the same person that I was when I was 10 years old. Or 20. Or even the same person that I was yesterday or an hour ago. I’ve acquired some new memories, probably lost a few too, and the “wiring” in my brain has likely changed. If you think of us as input/output devices, I really have very little in common with parts of my younger self, other than the fact that we were formed by this system that’s been walking around on this planet for a handful of decades.
The idea of locking someone up for life is, in some ways, punishing a body that may not even be housing the same person that committed the crime. Even the body isn’t really the same, so we’re really punishing someone who has some lineage to a person who committed the crime. This is basically the human equivalent of the Ship of Theseus.
So then the question becomes, at what point is the person in jail sufficiently differentiated from the person who committed the crime?
It’s late and unfortunately, I don’t know that I’m explaining this well. Hopefully, it’s coming across though.
Sadly, much of our justice system is more about making people feel good and not about making society better. People demand blood. Look at Ken’s post above. And to be clear, I’m not criticizing his post, but there are a few crimes that specifically make his blood boil. Why is the killing of a cop any more egregious than the killing of anyone else? Do we need some sort of ranking system? Are babies above or below cops? I assume that women rank above men for some inexplicable reason. Where do plumbers rank in relation to mechanics? My point is that it’s all emotional. Many in our society demand what will make *them* feel better (not even the victims) so that they can pump their fists and say, “There! They got what I think they deserved!”
Before we can answer how our justice system should work we need to decide what its goal is, and right now there are radically different ideas for that.