How to deal with people who abuse their social contract with the community is a hard question. Certainly, the way prisons are run and the social safety net of former inmates can be better. But these initiatives are themselves subject to the very forces that led to criminality. The Christian Worldview uses the unlovely term “Sin” to describe that quirk in human nature that produces the sins the community is trying to eradicate. Unfortunately, too many prison officials, guards, and various individuals connected to the “prison industry” dismiss that description of human nature as it is applied to them. They are unconscious disciples of Enlightenment thinking that declared the death of Man’s inherent sinfulness in favour of basic goodness, needing only the proper circumstances for the goodness to be realized.
In this new paradigm, criminality becomes a social issue instead of a moral issue. The prison industry is tasked with the job of providing those favourable circumstances through which the inherent goodness of the criminal can be expressed. The entire industry has worked on this file with little success for three hundred years, with little to show for it.
It is interesting to me that jails allow Christian chaplains as a normal modus operandi. I have applied myself to volunteer as a friend to inmates, weekly visiting them over closed-circuit TV. My surprise comes from the lessening of Christian influence in much of our Western society lately. Could it be that Christian programs have been shown as one of the more successful approaches in relation to any freedom from reoffending?
It certainly makes sense that Christian programs reduce criminality. Things only seem to have gotten worse now that we place the blame for crimes on environment instead of moral character (and since American society as a whole has turned away from Christianity).
The term sin strikes people as 'unlovely' (most truths do) but I think it is also more hopeful than the alternative. Under this framework, a person who does wrong has the power to redeem themselves. The alternative, that they were condemned from the start to be an unfortunate product of their environment, is incredibly bleak. No wonder 'rehabilitation' always seems to fail (unless it is also accompanied by a shift in values, like the Christian programs you mentioned).
What came to mind when I was reading this was my classes on rehabilitative vs restorative vs retributive justice in my conflict transformation program. It raises the fundamental question of "What is the role of justice?"
I think it's an important question to consider. The obvious answer is that, like you said, it maintains order that is attuned to social morality. But that opens the question, "What is our morality?" And "how does justice maintain order and morality?"
The fundamental idea in much of jurisprudence is to "make whole" the victim. Of course, there's plenty of cases where that is not possible. The idea then is to enact a punishment which seems befitting a crime. This is an attempt at satiating the anger and desire for retribution.
What then of the reality of the victim and criminal? Despite the justice system, they both walk away worse off. The criminal is subjected to the brutality of prison, and the victim must resign themselves to whatever closure the sentencing may give them.
Restorative justice, as most famously executed in Rwanda and South Africa, focuses on bringing the victim and perpetrator into a reconciliation of the harm that has occured. The hope is that this brings closure to the victims, and that the perpetrator may redeem and rehabilitate themselves.
A friend, however, put across a pertinent question. What of a crime like rape? How does one reconcile such a brutal and senseless act? At the time, I agreed that this was probably an exception to the idea of restorative justice. But the more I work with the aggression and anguish, the more I'm beginning to wonder, if cases like that too can be seen through restoration.
Of course, at the end of the day, it depends on the prevailing jurisprudence. I agree with you that we cannot do away with the prison system with our current justice system. Perhaps human beings never will be able to.
How to deal with people who abuse their social contract with the community is a hard question. Certainly, the way prisons are run and the social safety net of former inmates can be better. But these initiatives are themselves subject to the very forces that led to criminality. The Christian Worldview uses the unlovely term “Sin” to describe that quirk in human nature that produces the sins the community is trying to eradicate. Unfortunately, too many prison officials, guards, and various individuals connected to the “prison industry” dismiss that description of human nature as it is applied to them. They are unconscious disciples of Enlightenment thinking that declared the death of Man’s inherent sinfulness in favour of basic goodness, needing only the proper circumstances for the goodness to be realized.
In this new paradigm, criminality becomes a social issue instead of a moral issue. The prison industry is tasked with the job of providing those favourable circumstances through which the inherent goodness of the criminal can be expressed. The entire industry has worked on this file with little success for three hundred years, with little to show for it.
It is interesting to me that jails allow Christian chaplains as a normal modus operandi. I have applied myself to volunteer as a friend to inmates, weekly visiting them over closed-circuit TV. My surprise comes from the lessening of Christian influence in much of our Western society lately. Could it be that Christian programs have been shown as one of the more successful approaches in relation to any freedom from reoffending?
(See https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-4614-8930-6_1)
It certainly makes sense that Christian programs reduce criminality. Things only seem to have gotten worse now that we place the blame for crimes on environment instead of moral character (and since American society as a whole has turned away from Christianity).
The term sin strikes people as 'unlovely' (most truths do) but I think it is also more hopeful than the alternative. Under this framework, a person who does wrong has the power to redeem themselves. The alternative, that they were condemned from the start to be an unfortunate product of their environment, is incredibly bleak. No wonder 'rehabilitation' always seems to fail (unless it is also accompanied by a shift in values, like the Christian programs you mentioned).
Exactly…
What came to mind when I was reading this was my classes on rehabilitative vs restorative vs retributive justice in my conflict transformation program. It raises the fundamental question of "What is the role of justice?"
I think it's an important question to consider. The obvious answer is that, like you said, it maintains order that is attuned to social morality. But that opens the question, "What is our morality?" And "how does justice maintain order and morality?"
The fundamental idea in much of jurisprudence is to "make whole" the victim. Of course, there's plenty of cases where that is not possible. The idea then is to enact a punishment which seems befitting a crime. This is an attempt at satiating the anger and desire for retribution.
What then of the reality of the victim and criminal? Despite the justice system, they both walk away worse off. The criminal is subjected to the brutality of prison, and the victim must resign themselves to whatever closure the sentencing may give them.
Restorative justice, as most famously executed in Rwanda and South Africa, focuses on bringing the victim and perpetrator into a reconciliation of the harm that has occured. The hope is that this brings closure to the victims, and that the perpetrator may redeem and rehabilitate themselves.
A friend, however, put across a pertinent question. What of a crime like rape? How does one reconcile such a brutal and senseless act? At the time, I agreed that this was probably an exception to the idea of restorative justice. But the more I work with the aggression and anguish, the more I'm beginning to wonder, if cases like that too can be seen through restoration.
Of course, at the end of the day, it depends on the prevailing jurisprudence. I agree with you that we cannot do away with the prison system with our current justice system. Perhaps human beings never will be able to.