Criminals: Doing justice in an unfair world

John Kennedy once famously said that life is unfair. He was speaking of the call up of reservists during the Berlin crisis of 1961 when the Soviets tested the young president by threatening West Berlin.

Kennedy was correct of course, but he knew only the half of it. A day spent in the criminal courts of our nation is an education in just how unfair life really is.

Judges being unjust? That’s not what I have in mind. The problem with our judicial system is that it does not and cannot do divine justice. The unfairness of which I speak may in fact be a complaint against the Almighty, for the injustice usually begins at birth. That said, we have to settle for merely human justice, which we pray is an approximation of what the Almighty might do.

For 26 years as a Circuit Court judge, this writer sentenced criminals to probation, jail, and prison. Their crimes ranged from marijuana and cocaine use to shoplifting to burglary to rape to murder. The vast majority of them were young—17 to 25—and most of them never had a chance in life. Most had serious mental and social deficits. The typical young offender had been physically, sexually, or emotionally abused or neglected from their earliest years.

And that is the just the tip of the iceberg. Look further and you find that many of them suffered all of the above. Add to that a lack of intelligence, ADD, ADHD, mental illness, dyslexia, fetal alcohol syndrome, and various dependencies as a result of addictive personalities, and you begin to get the picture.

When you take into account the dramatic rise in the number of female criminals in the last 25 years, you begin to understand why little kids so often are not only neglected but also subjected to the very influences that are almost guaranteed to produce criminals. The protective mother of yesteryear seems to be disappearing. She has joined Dad in society’s underbelly of drugs and crime.

How about a boy who was introduced to cocaine by his father at age 12? What about a pregnant woman who insists on using cocaine despite the effect on her unborn child? How do you break the cycle? On occasion judges send a pregnant woman to jail not only to punish but also to protect the infant—and the rest of us. You do what you can to break the cycle.

In the end a wise judge comes to realize that the traditional factors set forth to justify incarceration ring hollow. He or she comes to rely on the only justification that makes sense: protection of the public.

The other sentencing factors bleach out under the hot sun of experience. How many are rehabilitated in jail or prison? Do we even try any more? Deterrence? How many child molesters are deterred by hearing or reading about their kind getting caught? Surprisingly, very few, it seems. The cycle goes on and on.

Punishment is classically advanced as the main factor in sentencing, but punishment alone does not prevent crime.  Dedicated criminals do not plan on getting caught. However, punishment does serve one important purpose. As less violent criminals get older, they grow weary of jails, orange uniforms, lawyers, and courtrooms, not to mention judges. Many go straight because they just wear out: their criminal impulses wither with age and experience. But that can take many years and many court cases and sentences to jail or prison.

Retribution? It is true that some crimes are so serious that they call for harsh punishment even if the offender is unlikely to commit another crime. An otherwise meek woman who rears up in a rage and kills her unfaithful husband with a single blow with a poker is very unlikely to kill again, but no one would suggest she go free because she is no threat to society.

Protection of the public is the one reason that allows us to face up to the unfairness of life. If the criminal, no matter how horrible his upbringing, is a threat to society, then he or she should be taken out of society for as long as possible. On one occasion a 21-year-old child molester went to prison for 60 to 90 years. There was overwhelming evidence that he was dedicated to his pedophilia and would repeat his crime. Even if he were the victim of abuse and neglect, and despite a natural sympathy in light of a horrific upbringing, the judge had to send him to prison for as long as possible.

There is a danger in thinking about all these things that we may despair and want to hand over the whole mess to the psychiatrists. If everybody is sick, why not treat them instead of punishing them. That has been tried and failed. Too many times defendants have been treated and released only to go on to kill or molest again. Psychiatry too often promises more than it can deliver. A healthy skepticism when it comes to that field is very much in order.

To be sure, there is merit in the treatment approach, and drug and alcohol courts have sprung up all over the nation. But the law is predicated on the idea that people have free will. We make choices, for good or for evil. Treatment has its place, and some people do benefit from it, especially when a judge is looking over the shoulder. But it is only a partial answer, and generally an inadequate one.

If we are ever going to improve the situations that breed crime, we must work to restore that family as the heart of our society, and work against a culture that sneers at marriage, discipline, stability, and old-fashioned ideas like virtue.

One can hope.

Meanwhile, judges will keep on focusing on protecting the public.

► Stan Latreille is a retired Livingston County Circuit Court judge, a former newspaperman, and a published novelist.