Let me start by trying to identify the roots of both criminal behavior and our desire for revenge/justice when we are victims of such behavior.
I would like to suggest that our general attitude towards criminal behavior is related to a discussion about how we discipline our children and the resulting consequences.
Clearly, our society (the US) is more punitively oriented than most other developed countries (especially Western Europe). It is my position that this orientation toward punishment develops during the formative years of childhood in association with our parenting practices.
There is an important factor involved with our desire to have our ‘pound of flesh’ against those who commit illegal acts…lack of compassion, which is behavior that depends on empathy. (Ironically, a lack of empathy is a primary characteristic of antisocial behavior, as well as sociopathy.) I recently read a study that established a link between low-level parenting skills and deficiencies in the development of empathy in children.
I do not support the concept of ‘rehabilitation’ as it is generally defined by our penal system because the word is too often associated with simply putting offenders in a cage to ‘straighten them out’ by giving them time to think about what they have done. done. Instead, I prefer to approach this concept in terms of how we can better address the problem of antisocial behavior by addressing the emotional damage that lies behind this form of behavior.
We are born into this world as social beings by nature. Although some mistakenly believe otherwise, we are not born with a propensity to cause harm to others. Rather, the desire to harm others is actually contrary to our nature. This is evidenced by the fact that our social nature includes a powerful basic drive for love and acceptance, which serves as the basis for our emotional needs. With this in mind, it is not difficult to assume that the vast majority of behavioral problems in children, especially those of an antisocial nature, occur as a result of an unfulfilled emotional need (i.e., for the child to feel completely safe in love and acceptance). parent/caregiver).
The question we must ask ourselves is to what extent can we successfully treat the emotional damage that has caused the victim to become a source of more victims?
Would it be fair to speculate that sociopaths are untreatable based on when we decide to stop trying? Of course, we don’t know the answer to this because we have lacked the will to look for alternative long-term treatment modalities that might prove effective. Rather, we have always intended to keep them locked up or kill them.
So, as things stand now, there are those who suffer irreparable emotional damage during their formative years that manifests in sociopathic/antisocial behavior. Consequently, violent sociopaths will need to be kept separate from mainstream society for safety reasons. I’m not going to argue with that fact. But what about all those petty criminals who have committed antisocial acts based on an upbringing that has left them seething with rage and rage from unfulfilled emotional need? They serve their time, pay their debt to society, and get parole. Do they return to the world only able to accept that they will face the same harsh emotional deprivation as part of the only reality they have ever known? It would be difficult to deny this possibility. So how should we best treat someone who views society with hostility, wary distrust, alienation, and contempt? If the world is seen as a cruel and uncaring place that will not hesitate to cause harm and pain, why would such people care if they hurt back as a means of anger-driven retribution?
Well, apparently we’re a society that’s not quite ready to consider questions like that, so what we do is meet the expectations of these hostility-ridden individuals by treating their past hurts more painfully, like degrading their social standing. -status that of a second-class citizen in terms of rights, privileges and job opportunities. Also, we actually believe that this is the most effective treatment method. What we actually do is simply fuel anger and alienation. Of course, our cultural values demand that these people be held accountable for their behavior and punished so that they can be “taught a lesson,” however counterproductive that lesson may be. But would it be constructive if we simultaneously reached out to these offenders with a loving hand of help and concern instead of driving them further away with a cold, hard-eyed fist of rejection and disapproval? Is it really wise for us to incarcerate socially alienated criminals in an environment designed to further alienate them with that harsh regard we reserve for wrongdoers who are not worthy of dignity or respect? Or, would it be more sensible to assume that if society were to lend a helping hand, it might serve to alleviate the level of antisocial tendencies in those who never knew what it was like to be given a fair shake in life? ?
While it is true that we continue to move in this direction by offering inmates educational programs, group therapy sessions, etc., the hand with which we reach out conveys more grudging reluctance than loving concern. Prevailing thinking still seems to hold that offenders should not be pampered with loving regard for a process of rehabilitation. Rather, we expel these considered ‘low life’ criminals from society by locking them in a cage and proceeding to strip them of their human dignity. Obviously, we are more interested in exacting retribution and revenge on wrongdoers than in (real) rehabilitation.
Antisocial behavior is treatable in many cases, and until we recognize this behavior as a mental disorder precipitated by emotional harm, we will continue to punish such behavior…a method of treatment that will continue to prove counterproductive. I confirmed this notion of ‘antisocial behavior in response to treatment’ for myself as a result of spending three months interviewing maximum security prisoners as part of my research for an article I once did on the emotional effects of imposed isolation. The consequences are invariably negative and make the individual a greater threat to society than he had previously been.
