Rehabilitation vs Punishment

[boyfriday]

Searching for references to pilchard curries (inspired by another thread), I came across this in The Guardian by Erwin James, about how he came to be a fan of the dish, whilst serving a prison term.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2005/aug/11/prisons.g2

 

The paper make no secret of the fact he'd been a lifer, but give little detail of the offence he was convicted of, and the publicity shots of an urbane middle aged man with even features and pressed shirts gives the impression of a popular university lecturer.

 

His own website paints an inspiring tale of a misguided youth, running off the rails, and after his conviction setting about reforming himself and gaining an Open University degree and career in journalism. Little is made of the offence he's convicted of and the reader's left feeling he's turned his life around and he's a positive example of rehabilitation after 20 years in prison.

 

http://erwinjames.co.uk/biog.html

 

However, delving a little further into the circumstances of his offences (double murder) and robbery paint a slightly less edifying image of James and it would be totally understandable if those close to his victims (and society) found themselves unable to forgive or acknowledge the positive changes to his life.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1173599/The-Guardians-Prison-Diarist-The-murderer-wrote-lies-got-paid-it.html

 

So the questions are, do you truly believe that serious offenders can be rehabilitated, should their rehabilitation also be dependent on forgiveness and should our view of them now be influenced by the crimes they committed many years previously?

[finoni9]

It's like the programme the other night about druggies/acoholics being paid to be steralised - some who have turned their life around feel it's wrong to put people in this position in case they do managee to kick the habit and want children but in the meantime lots of innocent children are suffering.

 

The scenario with this journalist is the same - do we have the right to take away his new life because of what he has done in the past and successfully overcome.

[norks]

I know someone who's ex partner is in jail for murder and given half the chance would track her down and do her in too. In fact after serving 5 years in jail he did manage to track her mother down and tried to gain information on her wereabouts etc,

 

I guess some people truly can be helped but others re just evil through and through and it would take punishment to try to sift the wheat from the chaff in my opinion

[boyfriday]

It's like the programme the other night about druggies/acoholics being paid to be steralised - some who have turned their life around feel it's wrong to put people in this position in case they do managee to kick the habit and want children but in the meantime lots of innocent children are suffering.

That's a good point, on the face of it I cant condone the idea of sterilising people because we don't like their lifestyles, but with some individual cases I'd do that and hold them in the village stocks whilst doing it!

[boyfriday]

I know someone who's ex partner is in jail for murder and given half the chance would track her down and do her in too. In fact after serving 5 years in jail he did manage to track her mother down and tried to gain information on her wereabouts etc,

 

I guess some people truly can be helped but others re just evil through and through and it would take punishment to try to sift the wheat from the chaff in my opinion

 

Ok norks, but how would you feel if your friend's ex-partner had served his sentence and whilst doing so completely turned his life around and presented himself as a totally reformed human being?

 

I guess extending the thought further-what if you didn't know him or his crimes and subsequently met him and those encounters were positive ones, would your view change if you then discovered he was a convicted murderer?

[Paul2412]

Ok norks, but how would you feel if your friend's ex-partner had served his sentence and whilst doing so completely turned his life around and presented himself as a totally reformed human being?

 

I guess extending the thought further-what if you didn't know him or his crimes and subsequently met him and those encounters were positive ones, would your view change if you then discovered he was a convicted murderer?

 

I would say that its completely down to the crime committed. Life should mean life.

 

If you have murdered someone, that person is never getting their life back so why should you be given a second chance?

 

Manslaughter is possibly different, as the intent wasn't there and its possible that you never dreamed of killing the person.

[mj.scuba]

Regardless of how he may have been rehabilitated, the fact is he brutally extinguished not one but two lives. To me that should mean life in jail. Or the rope.

[norks]

Ok norks, but how would you feel if your friend's ex-partner had served his sentence and whilst doing so completely turned his life around and presented himself as a totally reformed human being?

 

I guess extending the thought further-what if you didn't know him or his crimes and subsequently met him and those encounters were positive ones, would your view change if you then discovered he was a convicted murderer?

 

 

 

Believe me, i know what this monster did and he would ever be a reformed human being, in fact he is barely human to start with.

Life should mean life for him.

[boyfriday]

Believe me, i know what this monster did and he would ever be a reformed human being, in fact he is barely human to start with.

Life should mean life for him.

 

You may well be right, but what I'm trying to say is your view is affected by what you know of him and the crimes he committed whilst he was connected to your friend.

 

My point is, when reading the funny account of how Erwin James came to entertain his neighbours with a pilchard curry and how he came across the recipe, I was initially impressed by his life story.

 

Then when reading about the crimes he'd committed my view changed completely, even though the person he is now, is the one I 'know', rather than the one he was when he was murdering innocent people.

[boyfriday]

I would say that its completely down to the crime committed. Life should mean life.

 

If you have murdered someone, that person is never getting their life back so why should you be given a second chance?

 

Manslaughter is possibly different, as the intent wasn't there and its possible that you never dreamed of killing the person.

 

Regardless of how he may have been rehabilitated, the fact is he brutally extinguished not one but two lives. To me that should mean life in jail. Or the rope.

 

What would you do if you subsequently discovered that someone you'd met and become friends with or formed a positive opinion of had been a convicted murderer?

 

It's usually celebrities (eg Leslie Grantham) who are put under scrutiny and their previous misdeeds made public, but just on the basis of probability we must have unknowingly encountered rapists and murderers in our day to day lives, possibly become friends with them and their past never been known to us.