Crime not Punishment
Crime and not Punishment. An exercise in exploring a preconceived notion.
In school history, TV documentaries etc. we are told that many years ago we would go out to kill our neighbouring village’s men and rape their women. Then we had the crusades where we went out and killed Muslims and raped their women. Then we killed Catholics and then Protestants and then Catholics and then Protestants and then witches. Or was it Protestants and then Catholics? All during this time we also had bear baiting, badger baiting, dog fighting, cock fighting etc. etc. and after all this we still had hunting with dogs, FGM, killing or aborting female babies, refusing to educate females, forced marriage. Then we had MP’s expenses and then MP’s sex abuse scandals. Do we see a trend here? Here in the UK things seem to be very very slowly getting better, but that might be just spin. From what I hear in the media, in some parts of the world, things are much worse than UK. I have come to believe, through stories of: Buda, Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandy etc. that there has always been a few people who know better, a modern example is Malala, the young lady who was shot in the head for saying all children should go to school, but very few people are listening to people like Malala. Please Google Malala. Or go to: https://www.malala.org/malalas-story .
I was taught by the Open University that our jeans have evolved over eons, and in school history, that our society has evolved over millennia therefore, I believe, the two are now out of sync. Over the last tens of thousands of years society has changed enormously but jeans hang around for much longer than that so our instincts are little different than ten or fifty thousand years ago. So, in my opinion, the evolution of our jeans is badly lagging behind the evolution of society.
I know from personal experience that some criminals, when about their business, believe they’re just going about their normal work, just like a nurse or a plumber, or they might believe they’re even doing someone a favour, like for instance: stealing something from work to give to a friend, or paying for something with cash, and no paper record of the transaction, so that the recipient of the cash will save on income tax and VAT. My second example may be construed as altruistic, because the criminal gains no immediate benefit while he is benefiting someone else. Some even believe it to be their moral duty to do this kind of thing in order to undermine an unfair system.
There was an article I saw in the 90s, which suggested that 20th century family life is a left over from hunter gatherer times where the females went out to gather and the males went out to hunt. Much less so now, but then, in the 20th, shopping had replaced gathering, and wage earning had replaced hunting. Maybe the criminal is just hunting.
Some people unfairly exploit animals, like fur farming. Or illegally exploit animals, like ivory poaching, etc. etc. The difference between a criminal and a normal person can be almost very small.
In my opinion criminal behaviour is a bit like hunting, you go around someone’s back, mostly someone of a different species, being careful to stay down wind, and then kill and eat them or sneak in and steal their kill or scare them off and steal their kill. Criminals and hunters usually don’t have a problem with that. This behaviour is hard wired into our jeans and perfectly natural and in hunter gatherer times this was the way to go, but times change.
Are criminals bad people? You might think this is a stupid question. Of course they are, you might say. But you also might say,’ well lying, cheating, steeling, dropping litter, parking in a disabled space without a badge, is natural behaviour; therefore behaving naturally can make someone a bad person. Criminals are just following their natural instincts.
Many people still believe in corporal and capital punishment. Which begs the question ‘if we punish a murderer with execution, aren’t we committing the same crime’? Maybe we believe the murderer deserves it. The murderer probably believed the victim deserved it. In our opinion, the murderer deserves to die, in the murderers opinion the victim deserved to die, likewise, beating a kid for bad behaviour because heesh deserves it. But isn’t beating someone also bad behaviour. What sort of an example is this for a kid? And who is going to beat the beater for all this bad behaviour? and on and on. I have met people who believe that it’s parent’s moral duty to beat their kids.
I would like to suggest that all this deserving, or not is purely opinion. We sometimes hear in the media of, people wanting to re introduce capital punishment, therefore, since we don’t at the moment have capital punishment, except for causing a riot in a naval dockyard*, some people must believe in capital punishment and some not, this to me sounds like difference of opinion. I have noticed that people’s opinions change, over the years, over the centuries, mostly for better but occasionally for worse. Can we ever justify doing anything as drastic and irreversible as killing? A kid will remember and resent a beating for the rest of hiser life. Punishment doesn’t work most of the time anyway, or so I keep hearing in the media about repeat offenders. From personal experience, it just makes people feel vengeful and want to do the “bad stuff” even more in order to get their own back and practice getting better at avoiding the punishment. You could argue that they deserve punishment, but, in my opinion, that’s not the point. What we would like is less criminal activity. We should handle criminals in such a way as to help them reform rather than pandering to vengeful people just out for gratification. It’s well known that punishment and fear of punishment is little deterrent to criminals.
Some say,” there’s little difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist”, yet we praise freedom fighters and kill terrorists. Behaviour has evolved over millions of years. We are driven by our genes to behave in a particular way. Ok, upbringing, education, indoctrination etc. also play a part, but the people providing these are also driven by genes.
According to David Attenborough and the like, we are team players, this is part of the reason we are so successful, or not, in the case of peer pressure. We have families, neighbourhoods, clubs, religions, trade unions etc. etc. Being part of a team makes us much more successful, but it also makes us very vulnerable to suggestion from our other team members.
The other man’s grass is always greener, and we say this for good reason. The reason is that we are genetically programed to believe this, even if it’s not true, it’s in order to make us strive for better, even if this means stealing the other man’s grass. If we we’re always happy with the status quo then why would we even get out of bed?
Institutional change and education is the key, but it’s got to avoid all indoctrination. If we tell people how to behave they’re only going to rebel. You can’t go around saying “this is bad” or “you should do this”. What you need to say is “There have been studies that suggest that some people tend to do this or that because…..” and then explain to them in practical or scientific terms, then they may be able to put two and two together and make their own opinions which are more likely to be good ones. Please take a look here http://www.behaviouralinsights.co.uk/ to see some of what the UK government is doing to change public behaviour and opinion and I commend their efforts.
Some people say that what’s written in the Bible, Koran etc. is fact, and that science is theory. And yet both theologians, and scientists frequently update their opinions, so what we need to say is, which theories have the most evidence to back them up? And we need to be prepared to change them when better evidence comes along.
Nature has no consideration for the welfare of the individual; its only interest is the success of the species. So if going to war increases the success of the species, or at least, isn’t detrimental to it, then war is perfectly legitimate in the eyes of nature, no matter how horrific. Likewise with crime, if the criminal is successful and thus able to breed more criminals then this is perfectly ok with nature. We need something better, a completely different outlook, education or institutional change maybe?
Going to war is a natural instinct because the enemy probably have fewer jeans in common with us therefor if we can kill them, our jeans will have less competition and thus proliferate more. Ok, self defence might come into it but if the enemy hadn’t already attacked us there would be no need for self defence.
Instead of punishing criminals we should rehabilitate them, even if it ends up being exactly the same treatment. It is important to use the correct words. The criminal mustn’t think that we are feeling gratification for his demise. This line of thought is only going to make the criminal vengeful and even more determined. Prisons are very expensive, and custody should be a last resort, and only for people who pose a risk to life and limb. Even then it should not be referred to as punishment. It’s well known that punishment and fear of punishment is little deterrent to criminals. Maybe prisons and rehabilitation could be under the jurisdiction of the health and safety executive and NHS, described as, protecting the public during rehabilitation of the criminal, which will be perfectly true, and thus perfectly suited to be under HSE and NHS management. Maybe call prisons, secure hospitals, then we have no criminals only patients, hay presto we end crime and save a lot of money by abolishing three words ‘prison’ ‘criminal’ and ‘punishment’. Several words have already, all but disappeared, like one that some people used to use to refer to people of Afro-Caribbean decent and a couple of others for people from a little further east.
Now, in the 21st, we are able to curfew patients (criminals) with electronic tagging. Even this mustn’t be referred to as punishment for the reasons mentioned above. Instead we need to call it ‘keeping the patient out of mischief’. This would be cheaper and less damaging on the patient than custody. The patient might even go to work, even being an asset to society rather than a burden, and may end up recovering.
Whenever it is appropriate to levy a fine on a patient (criminal), this must also not be called punishment, this should be referred to as a contribution towards the court costs, policing etc. It should be explained to the patient (criminal) that no one is making a profit from his contribution. Otherwise the patient (criminal) is going to feel ripped off, a victim of institutionalised theft, exactly like many tax payers feel, also motorists about speed cameras and parking fines. These feelings are only going to make the patient more determined to get revenge.
Much of the above is aimed at changing public opinion. You might say ’what difference will that make?’ But lots of beneficial changes have been made by changing public opinion, just look at slavery, seat belts, smoking, badger baiting, hunting with dogs, renewable energy etc. etc. If we can educate people into believing the fact that some ‘natural behaviour’ (crime) drags down the general wealth of everyone, and dealing with it will make us all better off, then we may make the world a better place. Just telling people that some ‘natural behaviour’ is bad, isn’t education, it’s indoctrination, and it’s well known that indoctrination isn’t good.
The entire universe or if you prefer, the entire multiverse is a product of natural evolution or maybe divine intervention. Whichever way you look at it all people are very much alike. We have very very many more similarities than differences. We all eat, drink, breathe and reproduce. What’s good for me is usually good for you.
Foxes often get criticised for breaking into the hen coop and killing everything in there, like it’s some sort of blood lust or joy of killing, but their jeans are only thinking about the future, kill everything now to prevent it running off so then have a ready food supply for the next several days. Likewise with men, they go on a grouse or pheasant shoot and kill maybe fifty birds in one day or they put turkeys through a slaughter house and kill maybe ten thousand.
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John Parlour