Popular culture reinforces our society’s bloodlust

Elamin Abdelmahmoud, ArtSci ’11

We have an unhealthy obsession with administering punishment. In kindergarten, if you play too rough, you get a time-out. Later in life, if you talk during class you’re asked to leave.

We’ve built a punitive culture around the idea that if you do something bad, you’re no longer worthy of social company and you get to leave for a little while and think about what you’ve done.

This obsession is reflected in the popular culture we consume, and our own individual senses of justice.

However, at no point have we actually taken a moment to reflect on the origins and consequences of the blood-thirst for retributive, punitive measures.

The origins of our obsession will not be my focus—I’d like to focus on the consequences.

Particularly, I think it’s important to focus on the fact that we have no evidence to suggest retributive justice actually serves any purpose aside from satisfying our need for some kind of measured revenge.

This lack of evidence is actually quite glaring—recidivism rates are nothing to be proud of, and the reasons most crimes are committed are completely ignored in administering punishment.

The fact of the matter is, the vast majority of crimes are committed because of social circumstances that result in poor choices. We have begun to acknowledge this with the use of rehabilitative programs.

Such programs can actually benefit those who have committed a crime, as opposed to jailing them for an extended period of time before returning them to the same social conditions that resulted in the crime in the first place.

Instead, we’ve conditioned ourselves (and reinforced it through popular culture) that most crimes are committed by people who are bad in essence, and as such should be put away for a little while. This obsession has got to end.

We must move away from ancient thinking about justice and into a rethinking of “criminal justice.” By using more rehabilitative programs, we can begin to listen to the countless studies that tell us that actually, it’s way more complicated than our backwards, undeveloped thought.

Send prisoners to an island to start their own society, like Scandinavia

Devin McDonald, ArtSci ’13

I’d like to first lay out a few assumptions I’m going to make, considering that the subject is chalked with a litany of ideological conflicts, which I don’t have the space to address. The most pressing of these is the notion of retributive justice. 

For a variety of philosophical and practical reasons, I’m not one to bade consideration of the extent to which the criminal system delivers any abstract notions of the “what is right” or “what is just.” My intent here is to examine by what means we might maximize the utility of the criminal justice system in favour of the public good. 

First, a conversation about the way in which we deal with crime ought to consider the composition of the majority of crime.

Currently, a majority of crime committed is largely victimless, insofar as it’s drug-related and thus all the actors involved are in some form consenting to any negative effects of their involvement.

Thus it is my opinion that if the government took an educational or demand-side approach to drug abuse, not only would they gain more ground but they would eliminate a massive strain on the criminal justice system. Bearing in mind the removal of drug crime, we’re left with a relatively small number of offenders.

I would then assert that the remaining offenders can be divided into two camps; a) those who commit crime out of desperation or as the result of poverty b) those who commit crimes due to an inability to appreciate the moral depravity of the act, whether through a lack of moral grounding or through mental incapacity (which should be a mental health problem and not a criminal one). 

I still believe in the relative deterrent factor of punishment, but I disagree with the current methods of punishment.

My solution looks to programs implemented in Scandinavia, wherein criminals are sent to islands and given a mandate of self-governance.

Such a program would give criminals an opportunity to learn the value of moral action because the success or failure of their community is reliant on it.

Thus, the deterrent factor is retained as they face the threat of living with other people of moral incredulity, but they are given the opportunity to consider the value of moral action.

The point is to stress education over the archaic idea that poking out the offender’s eye will bring back the victim’s sight.

Balancing rehabilitation with retribution in Canada’s prison system

Lindsay Kline, ArtSci ’11

Criminal justice in Canada should be reformed to rehabilitate the many and continue to punish the few. To outright abolish prisons would be problematic to those who have committed heinous crimes and are psychologically irretrievable.

However, implementing more rehabilitation programs for those people whose crimes are forgivable and are able to see right from wrong would be beneficial to Canadian society as well as themselves.

While continuing to put the crazies and criminals in cellblocks around the country is essentially the easy and cheap way to punish criminals, it remains the least effective.

On the other hand, rehabilitation programs and facilities would properly educate criminals of their wrongdoings as well as address social and mental health circumstances that caused their initial crime.

For me, the line must be drawn at criminals such as Paul Bernardo and Russell Williams who are criminals psychologically incapable of being rehabilitated and deserve the loneliness of a cold, dark cellblock.

The bottom line is that criminal justice is needed when criminal acts such as murder and rape are committed, criminal rehabilitation is needed for youth offenders and those responsible for lesser crimes.

The difference between criminal justice and criminal rehabilitation needs to be solidified and pursued so that those who deserve a second chance are given the opportunity.

However, I cannot help but have sympathy for those who have been affected by crime, no matter how big or small.

The reliance and trust Canadian citizens have in their criminal justice system is multiplied exponentially when personal experience becomes involved.

Thus, the value of receiving justice will have different meanings for Canadians with varying backgrounds and experiences.

Send juvenile delinquents to private school instead of detention facilities

James Simpson, ArtSci ’11

When a child in Canada commits a crime, they enter the judicial system. There are a variety of decisions for prosecutors to make, such as the option to try the person as a child or as an adult.

If they are tried as a child, they may be sent to a juvenile delinquent facility (also known as “juvie”), which is effectively a prison for young people.

There are a few benefits to this system. We can imagine that many children commit crimes due to unstable or poisonous home environments.

Indeed, studies have corroborated this conclusion. The United Nations’ World Youth Report notes that a lack of parental supervision is the best predictor of delinquency.

It further notes that delinquency is in large part related to poor social and economic conditions. Placing children in a facility for juvenile delinquents may actually be improving their social conditions and increasing their chances of leaving a life of crime.

Additionally, in the case of a violent juvenile delinquent, removing them and placing them in a facility will contribute to the safety of potential victims.

It also places the child in contact with people who can provide support for them to grow into someone who respects the law.

But these facilities often fail in their mandate. Recidivism is high, which is hardly surprising—delinquents leave these places without gaining any practical skills and move back into the same poisonous environment they left in the first place.

Furthermore, the price for such a small benefit is staggering. Estimates to keep a child in a facility for juvenile delinquents can cost between $50,000 and $70,000 per year.

This is a small fortune that could be spent in a much better way. Private boarding schools in Canada cost far less, between $25,000 and $45,000 per year.

These schools have the advantage of being able to take a child away from a poisonous environment and put them in a place where they can gain a quality education.

It seems sad that our society is unwilling to think outside the box in terms of providing better opportunities for children at a lower cost.

The government should consider implementing such a system to both save money and expand opportunities.

Britain’s Australian experience and the value of prison farms

Dan Osborne, ArtSci ’12

Professor Frank Lewis from the Queen’s economics department looked at the net economic costs of Britain’s decision to send prisoners to Australia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

In spite of the massive cost it took to send the proverbial ‘bad guys’ to the other side of the world, it actually had positive economic effects to send them.

Most people who go to prison are not blood-crazed murderers. They are merely people who fell into a bad rut or who have mental health issues and this is why Britain’s experience with Australia was successful.

When left in Britain, nearly eight out of 10 convicts would commit another crime once released. In Australia, virtually zero did; they went on to set up their own farms and small businesses.

The new Australians were more concerned with feeding themselves, starting families and playing sports than they were with committing crime.

One would think the fact that Australia moved from being a nation of convicts to having the second-highest Human Development Index of any country would sway the minds of at least a few politicians into bringing back rehabilitation programs in Canada.

Kingston was the home of prison farms for many years, programs which proved invaluable in reintegrating individuals back into society as a whole.

Though one may certainly offer ways to make such an initiative more effective or efficient—virtually none of the prisoners went into farming and the program lost about four million dollars a year—it was the best penal program of its kind in Canada.

As a libertarian, I often do not know what major political party to support. The Tories seem
hell-bent on making the prisons more American than American prisons and the Grits seem to ignore the prisons all together.

Regrettably, it’s only the New Democrats that argue for any substantive rehabilitation. As Kingston and the Islands’ federal NDP candidate Daniel Beals said, “the value and effectiveness of prison farms speaks to the very core of Canadian values.”