Punishing while respecting the criminal

In order to condemn

A monster, however horrible, secretly attracts us, pursues us, haunts us. It represents, magnified, our advantages and our miseries — it proclaims us, it is our standard-bearer. Cioran.

We have just understood, on the previous page, the fundamental equality between the criminal and their judge. But fundamental equality does not imply formal equality. The respect owed to the delinquent does not exempt them from judgement or punishment. On the contrary, impunity and injustice are prejudicial both to the evolution of law and to the delinquent. Our evolution demands irreproachable justice — firm, benevolent and upright.

Injustice generates absurdity

When a society allows certain of its delinquents to transgress without sanction, it leads to the absurd. Humanity can then no longer feel the meaning of humanity — the meaning of the world escapes it, for it requires the feeling of progress. The same is true when a party imposes zero tolerance on the people but not on the dominant. Even if it calls itself democratic, it is simply returning, covertly, to the laws of nature. Laxity and injustice are two politically disastrous stances for humanity — both types of system simply drag humanity downward, toward the omnipotence of the natural dominant.

Loving and punishing

Understanding the function of the delinquent

Socrates: Is it then the act of the just man to harm anyone?
Certainly, replied his interlocutor, one must harm the wicked who are our enemies.
But horses that are harmed — do they become better or worse?
Worse.
With respect to the virtue of dogs or of horses?
Of horses.
And dogs that are harmed — do they not become worse, with respect to the virtue of dogs and not of horses?
Of necessity.
But human beings who are harmed — shall we not say the same, that they become worse with respect to human virtue?
Absolutely.
But is justice not human virtue?
To that also there is necessity.
Therefore, my friend, those human beings who are harmed necessarily become worse.
It seems so. Plato, The Republic.

Loving while condemning

If the condemnation of the delinquent is fundamental for human evolution, so too is their respect. When we grasp the contribution of the transgressor to humanity, society's attitude toward them seems unjust. In matters of justice, laxity is an attack on both society and the delinquent — it simply obliges the latter to reoffend. But excessive severity is equally prejudicial for humanity as a whole. It simply illuminates our weakness of consciousness — our incapacity to understand the meaning of evolution and the role of the delinquent.

A torturing society

This is why we offer such pitiful conditions of detention to transgressors. Why we cast upon them that contemptuous gaze. Why we have not yet finished with the absurdity of the death penalty. These behaviours are unjust and counter-productive. At best they keep things as they are; at worst they degrade them. In any case they do not help the delinquent to want to change their way of asserting themselves. Even if prison conditions are improving in the West, they are far from acceptable. Certain states inflict quite simply perverse treatments on their prisoners — plunging them into zones of lawlessness where tyranny and violence reign.

Understanding and benevolence

Society's gaze must also evolve. In this respect, current television does not play the game — on the contrary, it fans binary feelings and hasty judgements. Humanity must ensure that no crime goes unpunished, for this is one of the conditions of our evolution. But it must be as compassionate and as educational as possible toward the transgressor. Wrongdoers, criminals and transgressors are full-fledged "workers" of this humanity — without them no evolution would have been possible.

Text written in 2000

The traveller who has nothing will pass singing before the thieves. Juvenal, Satires