I also experienced a different type of peer pressure. My first day out, I was approached by a succession of other prisoners, echoing the same guidance as the first guy: "We don't 'bang' here; we don't play [prison] politics, racial or any other kind; and we respect every one, including the guards." That speech has been an indelible part of my daily living for the past six years.
For more, check out: My Shawshank Redemption by Dortell Williams.
The topic of the day, besides changing Shortland Street actresses, seems to be violent criminals being paroled and then going on P-fuelled rampages. The term comes from the French word for "word" - the idea being that a convicted criminal can give his word that he won't break certain rules, and so he's allowed out of prison.
Now, whether or not that's a good idea naturally comes down to your attitude towards prison and the justice system in general. What is the justice system for? And does parole help towards that goal?
Stephen Franks says parole's pointless. He reckons that by (further) lowering the odds of spending a lot of time in jail, the gambling mind of the criminal is even more likely to commit crimes. Also, criminals aren't serving the sentence they've been given. Graeme Edgler explains non-parole periods of imprisonment as the actual punishment, and the maximum sentence provides protection to the community. He says, "The existence of a system of parole means we can keep certain criminals in prison even after their punishment is over, if their release would pose a risk to the community."
Both attitudes are to some extent tainted by the superstitious idea of "deserving punishment". A popular concern with parole - especially with the Sensible Sentencing Trust, which embodies the superstition - is that criminals are getting off easy, without having been punished with the suffering they deserve.
I'll try to explain this bizarre idea of "deserving" and "punishment", in case you're not familiar with it. Basically, these think that humans have a thing they call "free will". It's never really clear what this thing is, but it's sort of the idea that when you make a choice, even though you chose to do one thing, you could have chosen to do something else. It's as if you can totally step out of yourself and your situation and choose without any of those things that make choice possible (upbringing, hormones, emotions, etc.)
To make things worse, there are "good" actions and "evil" actions, and if you choose to do an "evil" action, you accumulate invisible points in a magical invisible scale in space or something. This is called "guilt". And once you have accumulated invisible guilt points, the world will be a better place after you have suffered. And since the world doesn't always make guilty people suffer, we have to do the job ourselves, and even up the invisible point scales by inflicting suffering on those who have accumated invisible guilt points. And failing to inflict that suffering is an evil action itself, and you can get invisible guilt points for it.
So when it comes to criminals, they're people who chose to do evil things, even though they could have - and "should have" - done good things instead, and so they have invisible guilt points and the justice system makes the world a better place by inflicting suffering on them. The more evil the action, the more suffering it takes to make the world a better place.
Unfortunately, these poor, deluded individuals have been rather influential in the past, and so the justice system has traditionally been more interested in evening up the invisible scales than actually reducing evil actions. Partly because to suggest that you can systematically reduce crime is to suggest that maybe crime has causes, rather than it just being those instances when people use their free will to choose to be evil.
On top of that, once the invisible scales have been evened up, there's no reason left to inflict suffering on someone, so it's good to let them go back into the community, no matter what kind of person they may still be.
If they were really concerned with reducing crime and not evening up invisible scales, the whole emphasis of the justice system would be on:
- Prevention - looking at the factors that cause people to commit crimes, and reducing them.
- Protection - of the community from people who have proven themselves dangerous.
- Rehabilitation - methods of changing people from being the kind who commit crimes to the kind that don't want to.
- Disincentive - a poor substitute for (1) and (3).
That would have two consequences for parole. Firstly, if a person has proved themselves to be a violent, dangerous person, they should not be allowed out until they have proven themselves to be a social, non-dangerous person. Secondly, the complete emphasis of prisons should be on rehabilitation, with no superstitious ideas of "punishment" getting in the way of that project.
You can choose to do what you want,
But you can't choose what you want to do.
Got it? Sweet.
Now, if it is so plainly obvious that we do things for reasons and that we don't choose our reasons, why is there still this idea of "free will" out there? This idea that somehow there is another element in the mix that is magically exempt from the situation, hovering spiritually above all of the reasons untouched, and choosing without being pushed around by circumstances?
Well, for one thing, there is the uncertainty of the future. Until something has come to pass, we don't really know for sure what's going to happen. The same goes with choices, our own choices included. Until I act, it certainly feels like I could act one way or another. That feeling of uncertainty gives me the feeling that there is something undetermined about the whole thing.
In a sense, it's true, because until the moment of choice occurs, I don't really know what kind of factors will be influencing me. I might suddenly remember something and act wildly differently from how I expected I was going to. But all that comes down to is not being completely certain what reasons I'll have at the moment of choice. I don't know what I'll choose because I don't know what reasons will be determining my choice at that moment. But that doesn't change the fact that it's the reasons that determine the choice.
Then there's the feeling that I could have acted differently. After making a choice, I have the ability to imagine what the outcome might have been, had I acted differently. I chose to shower this morning (honest), but I can imagine what it might be like to be sitting here at work smelling a bit like an IT helpdesk. And my imagination of the sequence of events begins with imagining what it would have been like to choose not to shower. But this ability to imagine does not make the world a magical place where I can choose to act one way when my reasons are all in favour of the other way. I don't like smelling like a role-player. I could perhaps imagine a situation where I do like smelling like a role-player and thus made the choice not to shower, but the fact remains that, in the world as it is, I prefer not to, and so I choose to wash.
And finally there's the fact that people don't like the idea they're not in charge. It's offensive to our egoistic sensibilities. But even the objection, "But I am in charge," is based on not quite getting it. You are in charge. You are making choices. But everything about being "in charge" and making choices is based on having some way of acting that you prefer. It makes no sense to talk about being in charge of your actions and your fate by being separated from your reasons for acting one way or another. If you really did become "free" in this sense of freedom from reasons for acting, what would you do? (Oh? And why would you do that?)
That's not the only reason people avoid acknowledging the nature of choice. Another is that there are a number of other concepts and social norms that are based on the fallacy of free will. People tend to have emotional attachments to what they've been brought up with. And if you've been brought up being told the following things, you don't want them undermined:
- People who do bad things could not have acted differently, given their circumstances.
- People who do good things could not have acted differently, given their circumstances.
- The cause of a crime may extend further than the person of the criminal him/herself - "good" people maybe causally related in some way.
- People who "choose to be poor" or "choose to work hard and become wealthy" could not have acted differently, given their circumstances.
- In short, blame and praise go out the window.
And we like blame and praise. We like to be able to point the finger at others and compare them unfavourably with ourselves. We like to relieve ourselves of any (causal) responsibility for those around us by assuring ourselves that everyone is responsible for their own choices. And we like to feel angry. Apparently the brain chemistry of anger is similar to happiness. Fair enough. It had its functions back in the days of primal this and that.
And so all of this comes around to the structure and functioning of society and how we understand individual responsibility, guilt, reward, punishment, blame and virtue. Which I'll write about tomorrow.
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