Crime and Punishment - Both are Insane!
Both crime and punishment are insane. To believe that you will get what you want by taking it from another, to believe that doing harm to another will serve you in some way, both are insane ideas. Anyone who is observing life clearly understands the insanity behind either approach to life. One popular definition of insanity states that to continue doing the same thing and expecting different results is insane. And it is. There is a feeling of frustration that goes along with insanity, which often causes anger and violence, or at least the thoughts to commit violent acts. Insanity is a lack of understanding of how life works, which plays out in the actions of the insane person. An insane person thinks or does certain things which give them results they do not want.
Consider the idea of punishing someone as our society does, locking them up in jail or prison for a long period of time. This is inhumane, this is torture, and in most cases patently unfair. The punishment is usually far more severe than the criminal act. The reason the severity seems necessary, is because punishment is such a poor way to get someone to change their behaviors, that we must go to great extremes for it to have any effect at all.
Punishment does harm to the individual who is already insane. If they committed a true crime, they are by definition insane. How will torturing someone like this alleviate their insanity? How do we expect their behavior to improve once released? What new lessons will that person have learned? In prison as they currently are, they will have become more skilled criminals. Locked up with others whose life skills consist of harming others, what else is there to learn? By being abused and neglected by those who watch over the prisoners what life lessons are learned?
And we can see the results if we open our eyes and observe. Most criminals go right out and commit another crime in order to be locked up once again. Do you know the reason? Not because they are looking for a free ride…a place to sleep and food, but because they feel safer and less judged amongst those of their own kind as opposed to the angry judgmental society that would do such a horrific thing to them in the first place.
Certainly there are those who are just broken by the experience, and those who leave prison and never commit another crime. Yet are they productive members of society, or just too frightened to fully participate anymore? I am confident that if we observe the results of our “justice” system we will find that in most cases (probably higher than 90%) it is failing miserably. And that is pure insanity. It says that as a society WE ARE INSANE!
Is there another way to protect the lives and properties of the people of our society? Most definitely there is, and the time has come for us to develop this system. Our goal should be to ensure the safety and well being of all people, even the insane criminals. Our goal should be to ensure that every citizen of society understands the proper use of their thoughts and actions in gaining the life experiences and objects that they desire. The actions we take to accomplish our goals should bear fruit. Our actions should deliver what it is we are seeking or we should adapt and evolve until we do accomplish our goals.
A Possible Solution
First we must do away with the idea of punishment. This is a must. There are all sorts of problems with punishment, the greatest being that it leads to dishonesty. And without truth, what can be accomplished? Without truth, we are dead in the water. We have nowhere to go when truth is absent. When there is no fear of punishment the truth should be much easier to discover. Why lie when you don’t have to?
Those who insist on punishment should fall into the same category as the perpetrator of the “crime”, insane, and as such both parties require treatment for their mental illness.
Developing new habits in the person who commits a crime should be our primary goal. ALL people operate out of habit most of the time. Rarely do people consciously choose their actions, and those that do are usually in the category of enlightened beings rather than criminals. You could argue that when a person steals an object, or does harm to another person, that they have consciously chosen to do that. But then I would argue that you really don’t understand people and life very well and thus you are not fit to be in a place of trying to solve this problem. Even those actions of theft and harm come from prior training. Habits of thinking like, “I can get what I want by stealing it, I can force that person to do my bidding by harming them or threatening them with harm,” are the real cause of their actions.
So we need to retrain people. Now it would be much easier, much more economically efficient, and much more humane if we actually offered this training from the get go. We should be doing a better job of training our children so that they don’t grow up to be criminals. We all know how horrible grade school and even high school years can be, with all of the bulling that goes on. This is the start of crime and it should be nipped in the bud.
But we still have to deal with an existing, predominantly insane society. And to do this we will need to provide retraining for a lot of adults with pre-existing insane ideas about life. People have to want to change in order to change. In the beginning we may need to keep the ultimate threat of punishment alive. The criminal would be given a choice, to participate in retraining, or have their freedoms severely restricted. They would be locked up in a reasonably comfortable prison cell, better than our current systems, and given good healthy food and good medical care. The only radio, TV, or reading material they would be allowed would contain positive, life affirming messages that in some way gave them a life skill that would improve their mental condition. Movies that promote violence and vengeance like, “The Terminator” and “Die Hard” would be strictly forbidden.
The retraining option should treat offenders with as much respect and dignity as possible. They should work one on one with guidance counselors to establish new skills and habits. Those criminals who have been successfully retrained would be prime candidates to assist newly discovered criminals in their retraining. Look at the good works that programs like Alcoholics Anonymous does. Reformed alcoholics, those with a real understanding of both sides of the problem, are helping those who are still struggling with their problem to transform.
Certainly there are more details that need to be fleshed out. But if we try we can do this. There is enough awareness in the world, there are enough people with love and compassion and an enlightened understanding of Life to solve this problem. The biggest problem we face is that the majority of people on the planet still don’t understand Life and are not paying attention, and not observing what is working and what is not. They are organized, they are active, and they are insanely working to perpetuate the problem. Those of us with awareness must become organized and must set about to solve this problem as well as all of the other problems that plague our world today.
How can we do that? Right now we have no system for problem solving. We need one. I have made a proposal for a system that will work in my blog titled International World Government. It contains something I call a World Solutions Database and a computerized system to facilitate working out these solutions with people who are intelligent and offering ideas that will work. (We need to work these issues out for all of the world, not just America.) I suggest you read that blog too. I fully intend to develop that system once I have the financial resources to do so…unless someone beats me to it…and that is fine with me since I already have a great deal of work on my plate.
We don’t need government approval to begin. We can solve some of the world’s problems in spite of the idiots who are currently running the world. And when we do our successes will speak for themselves and attract others to join us.
Love and Blessings,
Michael Skowronski
Author of Unforgettable: A Love and Spiritual Growth Story
Also on Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com…including awesome book reviews!
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