This is an idea I’ve been kicking around in my head for the last week or so. Suppose someone commits a truly reprehensible act in their past. The sort of thing that some people may end up in prison for, or may receive the death penalty.
I’m thinking specifically of someone like Melinda Loveless, and the horrendous, tortuous death of Shanda Sharer, but I’m not interested in her, specifically. It’s more of a general question.
If someone is a teenager, and they commit a vile crime like in the link, how do they (assuming they do) show to other people that they don’t want to be defined by that incident? Suppose someone serves their sentence, pays their debt to society, and wants to move on? How does one convince everyone else that they know what they’ve done, but that they’re a different person now?
It’s all well and good to say you don’t want to be defined by that heinous act. By how can you get others to not define you that way?
Some people change their name and move away. But that may not be a viable option for many people.
So, let’s assume that someone in your town committed a disgusting, senseless violent act. But years have passed, and that person’s back after a prison sentence. This act didn’t happen to anyone you know, or anyone in your family. They’ve truly accepted and owned up to their guilt, but they’re remorseful and have seriously worked towards wanting to redeem themselves.
I would place more weight on the opinion of the team of trained psychiatrists who deemed it safe to release the psycho killer from custody, than on her exquisitely polite invitations to come over for tea.
Granted, but I thought that was implicit in the OP. My mistake. Assuming that - that they’ve been psychologically and psychiatrically cleared - how do they move forward?
IMHO that person who is reformed and wants to accomplish this may need to move away and start over in a new area. The reformation process is one of going back and rebuilding in and of itself, and IMHO should be accompanied with a fresh start. I don’t think it would be possible to overlay the internal fresh start over the orginal society where the acts were committed. To me part of the reformation would be a inner urge and God’s guidance to do so. This person may try to fit back in, but I believe he/she will see that is not possible.
The other side is reparations, where that person dedicates their life to some cause of good. In this they will be able to stay, but to me that’s not repentance as the OP means it, but ongoing repayment to continuously prove your OK now.
Those are the 2 ways that come to mind, and I have seen/met people who are in both categories. The first seems to have worked out better, and they have shared with me their past, yet have a good life and respected in their community.
There’s ultimately nothing a formerly-vile person ***can ***do to convince people that they are no longer vile if these people don’t want to extend them a 2nd chance. You can’t control what other people think in their minds, and if society doesn’t want to be merciful it won’t be. All this formerly-vile person can do is live as upright and clean a life as they can and hope for the best.
Since the OP is directed at Dopers individually, I’d say that I would be convinced that someone is truly repentant if I can have a long Q&A with them and interview them, I suppose - ask questions about themselves. Or at least hear them express themselves and explain themselves in a testimony or talk of sorts.
This is actually an issue when I am writing to inmates (I’ve been doing prison ministry for some time now): What matters shouldn’t be what someone has done in the past, or who they were before, but where/who they are now, and which direction they are heading. Nobody can change their past, and it’s cruelty to hold someone’s regretted past against their currently-reformed self.
IMHO, *everyone who is truly repentant *deserves a clean slate. Granted, whether they are truly repentant or not may be something only they and God know, and society will never be able to determine perfectly what their current state of mind is, and it could be dangerous to misjudge.
I didn’t remember Melinda Loveless, but reading about her childhood, I’d have been surprised if she hadn’t had severe psychological problems. That consistent and starting at that young an age, it’s likely she has organic brain damage due to all the trauma and might not ever be able to live in society normally.
Having worked closely for many years with psychopaths, serial killers, and prison psychiatrists, I’d still the favor the psychiatrists, as the coin flip would give a 50% chance that the psycho killer won’t kill again. Most prison psychiatrists fall back on the maxim: The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. This is the truest thing I’ve learned about behavior in my 4 decades in medicine.
But in the instance of a reformed person, their “past behavior” would be a mixture. Maybe John Doe is a violent criminal from age 10-30, but a reformed and much-better person from age 30-50. Going by “past behavior,” should he be paroled or not?
Where’s he doing all this good behavior? In maximum security, where constraints are so tight that it’s easier to normalize your behavior to the maximum community standard? Or out in a minimum work camp, where you actually socialize with free folks while you’re at your work release job?
Even then, it’s tough to decide. Compliance is not reform.
Unfortunately, there are things that once done, you can never come back from.
I once believed in capital punishment. I don’t anymore because the chances of someone innocent being executed are too great.
So no, if you do something reprehensible and vile, knowing it is reprehensible and vile, you do not get a clean slate and a second chance. Be grateful you weren’t executed, and spend the rest of your days in prison. That’s it.
How exactly does one “redeem themselves” after one abducts, tortures, murders and sets a person on fire? I mean you aren’t talking about some lapse in judgement or mistake with unintended consequences like drunk driving or even killing someone in a bar fight accidently. They certainly can’t undo or make amends for what they did. Completed prison sentence or not, there is no way on Earth I would trust someone like that or have any sort of relationship with them in any meaningful way.
The best someone like that could hope for is to work some menial job where there is little possibility of injuring others and then live a life of quiet isolation until they died.
Yeah, it’s nightmare-inducing. I knew a couple of people on the periphery of the incident. Not the victim or the perpetrators, though we had some mutual acquaintances. I met Melinda once, but it was just in passing, and I didn’t say more than something like “hi, nice to meet ya.” Not long enough to gain any sense of who she was, and it was before the incident in the link.
I suppose I could have added a warning about how disturbing the link was (though it’s the Wikipedia article, not a site with pictures or anything), but I thought my descriptors in the OP would suffice.
I thought of Michael Vick as I read the OP’s question, as well.
An extremely successful NFL quarterback, it came to light in 2007 that Vick had been running a dog-fighting ring for a number of years. Vick pled guilty, and served 21 months in federal prison.
So, he’s paid his debt to society, from a legal/judicial standpoint. But, I know a number of people who are animal lovers, and who absolutely detest Vick. There’s nothing that Vick could do which would, in their mind, sufficiently repent for what he did to animals (and they have told me as much); they see him as utterly irredeemable.
I think this is being viewed from the wrong perspective.
The viewpoint is looking at the offender, it should be looking at the victims and society - and safety.
I don’t imagine you’ll get a more heinous offender than Myra Hindley - probably not a good idea to look her up - she was so convincing in her interactions with probation and psychiatrist staff that she even had Lord Longford - the social reformer - trying to obtain her release.
Whilst she might indeed have reformed, people I have spoken with who worked on the landings take a somewhat different view and cite her as being incredibly manipulative and devious, and none of that takes into account the effect of her crimes on victims and families.
I have dealt with a good many offenders, by the time I got to see them they generally have an extensive offending career, you have to work quite hard to get into the UK justice system and remain in it as an offender, we are very selective.
By the time we have got offenders to this state, the ones who will give up already have, we are left with those who will keep on going usually well into their forties.
Offenders are mostly regretful at being apprehended, and then regretful of the effects this has on their lifestyle. Drugs especially strips away humanity from offenders, and that includes alcohol - some of the cruelest individuals I ever came across were alcoholics.
The head people get it wrong enough for me to consider that the balance should be set firmly against the presumption of reform, offenders are very skilled at reading the staff who interview them and developing strategies to condition and gain benefit.
I think we as a society should allow them to move on but I would still have them on a kind of semi-probation where they have to check in with local police and tell them where they are living, where they work, if they get married, etc… Maybe have a social worker or police have them come in maybe every 2 years or so for a checkup interview.
Or even better, with todays big brother society we require them to allow police to look over there cell phone and internet records.
This way they are allowed indeed to move on but authorities still keep track of them.
On a much lower level I can relate to this and I have several friends who could as well. We were rowdy teenagers and got a reputation as such. It took about 25 years of class reunions ( One every 5 years) to shake this reputation and 50 years later still lingers and I wasn’t even all that bad. Becoming an activist against what they were might be the best strategy.
It may be that they simply can’t. Some things, once broken, can’t ever be mended.
I like to hope for the best and believe that people can improve if they choose to and really try, but I think there are probably situations where all avenues of hope have been thoroughly destroyed by the action that has already been taken.
You cut a hole in the ice on a fast flowing river and jump through. You are swept away under the ice. How will you get back out alive? Well, you simply won’t. You will almost certainly drown.
