theycallmelisa

This came up on another message board I go to, and it's started some interesting discussion.

What do you think? Can you pity some criminals? feel sorry for them? Can you be kind to a criminal?
No one's saying that feeling pity for a criminal means forgiving them or suggesting that it's okay to do so. It IS possible to feel sorry for them and agree with wanting a punishment at the same time.

Yes, I can have pity for the woman who has to steal baby formula for her baby because she lives in poverty. I would be kind and sympathetic to this person.


Yes, I can feel pity for the prostitutes that continue to sell themselves because they can't escape their pimp and/or have fallen into drug addiction and/or have no sense of self worth and/or don't have the supports in place to get out of that lifestyle and/or.... (the list goes on) I would be, if not kind, sympathetic at least civil.

Sure I can feel pity for the homeless man who breaks into an adandoned building so that he can have some shelter while sleeping at night. I would be kind and sympathetic to this person.

I can feel sorry for the father who just came face to face with his daughters sexual molestor, and beats him to a bloody pulp. I would be kind and sympathetic to this person.

I might even feel sorry for the paranoid schizophrenic who harms the "people after him" in some way. But that doesn't mean that I believe he should remain in society because he just "can't help it." However, I can feel sorry that that's what his life has come to.

These are all scenarios in which a person could feel "forced" to commit a crime, because they feel that there is no other option. Most "forced" crimes are selfish acts, and are committed out of a need for survival, not always with the intent to harm anyone else.

Bill O'Rights

Yes
No
Yes

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ngdawg

Uh, what KIND of interesting discussion? What are the circumstances? What would you do?
Pity? No. You got your ass into trouble, get it out of it.
Sorry? That'd be the same as pity. so...no.
Kind? If they did their act on me or mine, hell no. If they did their time and are trying to be responsible, I'm sure I have been.

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mixedmedia

Feel sorry or pity? No. And I don't suppose they want me to feel sorry or pity for them.

Be kind? Yes. I try to be kind to everyone. It's not in my nature to be intentionally unkind to anyone who hasn't given me reason to personally.

Bill O'Rights...your avatar is giving me a tummyache...from laughing.
That's the funniest thing I've seen in a while.

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Glory's Sun

I would venture to say that most don't want pity. They just want to be reassimilated back into society. So yeah I can be kind with criminals. Hell half the people I hung out with in HS were criminals.

I would say that the government needs to help criminals more after they do their time. I think it would be pretty hard to come out of jail (even a short term sentence) and try to become a "contributing" member of society. So instead of giving inmates $240 bucks when they leave the yard, how about set up some organization to help them get jobs and earn a living. That seems like it would help keep them from going back.

Is this the equivalent of pity? Nah, it's just lightening the load on the taxpayers if it works by not having to pay for prisons and their meals. Prisons are big business.

ratbastid

I'm not big on pity or feeling sorry for people in general. I basically think that all people are whole and complete and perfect, and there are actions that we all take that have consequences, and we all have barriers to our fully expressing that wholeness, completeness, and perfection. I believe that people are fundamentally big and capable, and pitying them or feeling sorry for them inevitably diminishes them--and if you do it for long enough, they start believing themselves to be small and incapable.

I can have compassion for the human being that would make the choices and take the actions that would end them up in jail or whatever. Let he who has never done a stupid thing in his life cast the first stone, I say. But that's very different from pity.

Can I be kind to them? Sure. I would hope that I could choose kindness and forgiveness even someone someone committed a crime against me.

Crack

I don't pity the criminal, or the act they commit, but the circumstances that lead them to commit such an act. Is that a get out of jail free card? Hell no, but if it helps to humanize a seemingly inhumane person, then yes, I pity their place in the world.

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Crack, you and I are long overdue for a vicious bout of mansex.

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Bill O'Rights

Much better, lisa. Much better.

__________________
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

"Hedonism with rules isn't hedonism at all, it's the Republican party." - JumpinJesus

It is indisputable that true beauty lies within...but a nice rack sure doesn't hurt.

pig

i don't know you guys - i don't pity/feel sorry for the guy who was in jail, is not out and trying to make his way in this crazy old world. i don't pity the hardened jackass who is pretty hardcore ok with a lifetime of robbin and killin. but the guy who is about to get jacked up with electricity, or the guy/girl getting drilled in the showers etc - i can pretty much feel sorry for a criminal or anyone else in that situation. cause that's got to suck right there.

even when they're not getting executed, beaten or raped - i probably can feel a little sorry for them, or bad for them at least. i'm chilling in my nice comfy house, they're in the middle of a bag of ass. they might have chosen it for themselves, but still...hindsights always a lot clearer, even if its not 20/20.

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stevie667

Depends on the crime.

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ratbastid

Seconded. This just went from being a highly lame OP to one of the better ones I've seen recently. Good work!

Topper

Depends on the crime, and maybe the people involved.

During the year after high school that I worked retail in a large box store, I had two different shoplifter encounters that elicited two very different types of responses from me.

The first was a guy with his 5-7 year old daughter trying to sneak a steak under his jacket late one night for dinner. When I was helping him determine why the bag he was trying to carry out (of food he had bought) was setting off the alarms, he soon confessed to having the steak hidden under his jacket. He was of course extremely apologetic, ashamed, etc (sincere or not, he did act this way). And I gave him as best of a verbal/ethical reprimand as I could manage, but I let him go. You could say perhaps I took more pity on his young daughter then him though, as I quickly tried to weigh the life she must live with a shoplifting father, vs. being a witness to her father getting dragged in to the security office (and maybe even the police getting called). But while the child may have been a factor, I didn't end the situation with any real ill will towards the guy.

The other situation was the exact opposite, when a drifter type with a shopping cart loaded with camping goodies and food went right through the alarms and made a bee line for the doors obviously ignoring my calls for him to please stop. In this situation, it sparked the exact opposite reaction from me, resulting in me chasing him down in the parking lot outside, dogging him back into the store, and making him jump through all the security hoops I could. He was stubborn, rude, argumentive, etc. The bastard managed to get off, but clearly I'm still bitter..

Two similar situations (hell the drifter may have "needed" the items even more then the guy trying to get a fancy steak for dinner, who knows), but due to the child, and the behavior of the first guy, I did show some "mercy" I guess you could say.

These of course are relatively "minor" offenses... not sure I'd make any parallel with more "serious" crimes.

Manic_Skafe

What about the person who consciously makes the decision to become a criminal for a cause they believe to be worthy of the risks? What about the children who grow up under oppression and will comprise the various ranks of the resistance? Should we also arrest women who protest for their right to vote?

Crime is an all too ambiguous term. If all that separates a criminal from a revolutionary is an illegal action and a subsequent paradigm shift then I can feel more than pity for the criminal who gets arrested for a cause they believe in - I could even go so far as to respect them.

However, I feel no pity for the senseless criminal who disturbs the general sense of peace without some greater good as their motivation.

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MSD

I can feel pity for anyone whose life is still worth anything. A child molester, rapist, terrorist, no. Someone who stole because they had no other choice, a kid whose friends pushed him to try weed and happened to be found by a cop, anyone who did somehting that harmed another and is truly remorseful for their actions yes.

I feel especially sorry for people who commit victimless crimes and get fucked over, like people who lose all federal aid for college because of being caught with a joint, or anyone else who put only themself at risk and was caught and prosecuted because a bunch of idiots in the government decided that it was their job to regulate morality and personal responsibility.

flstf

It is almost impossible to go through life in this society without breaking some law(s) (traffic, taxes, zoning restrictions, park restrictions, alcohol & drug laws, keep off the grass, keep out, no trespassing, noise ordinances, sexual activities between adults, etc...)

Which of us criminals deserve our sympathy depends on the crime of course, as well as the fairness of the law being broken. I guess I could add copyright infringement for music downloaders but that is not really a criminal act yet I think.

Toaster126

I don't see being legal with the same thing as being good, or moral, or just. So, for me, it depends 100% on the circumstances surrounding the crime i.e. whether they were committing crime based on desperation for basic needs, or whether they are just too fucking lazy or stupid to get their life on track.

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Willravel

I can feel pity for anyone, but I'm more likely to forgive if there's remorse.

ratbastid

I would hope I could find a way to forgive someone who committed a crime against me, but not for their sake--for mine. If you don't forgive, you suffer. Your pain and anger won't make their time in prison any worse. Your forgiving them allows you to move on.

Lasereth

I definitely feel sorry for/pity criminals. There's a catch though -- only the ones who genuinely regret the decision they made. What if you're a good person your entire life, and then in a decision that was made pumped on adrenaline threw a brick through a store front and hit someone during a riot?

You go to jail. That person just ruined their life due to adrenaline and not thinking. They immediately regret their decision, and now they go to jail for years. Game over to a person who lived their life as a good citizen up until that point.

It's sort of hard to explain. Let's say you've worked at a restaurant for 10 years and one day a customer is unbelievably rude. You've never fucked with anyone's food up until that point. You spit in their food. The customer catches it and you get caught. Bam, your work history is ruined, everything you've ever did is ruined because of one uncontrolled outburst.

Do all of these people deserve justice? Yeah, but it's easy to see how miserable they would be if they got busted when living an otherwise good/honest life.

You know these people would never have committed the crime if given another chance, but you don't get chances in our society. They made 1 single mistake in their entire lives and now the rest of their life is over because of it. One mistake costs you the <I>rest of your life.</I> I can't imagine being one of those people.

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bobdave

Do i feel sorry for criminals? I couldn't tell you for sure. Criminal is too broad a term.

Am i kind to criminals? Again this is an impossible question to answer. It probably depends on my mood.

I know I am kind to and sorry for one "criminal" in particular. My older brother went away when i was seven or eight. I saw him only a few times during the next ten years. Each time i saw him he was wearing a new prison jumpsuit at a new prison. For the longest time I wasn't even sure what he had done to be locked up... It wasn't a subject i was comfortable bringing up. It still isn't.

But he is out now, and is living a very happy life with his new wife and kids. I am sorry for myself more than I am for him. I would have loved to have had a big brother growing up.

For some, prison can be a very sobering experience. For others it is only a training facility. Im glad that in his case it was the former.

Sorry if this is off topic

longbough

Pity?

... perhaps, but what's the point?

Are you going to write their life story, give them money or pay for years of psychological and social counseling? You don't need pity for that ... you just time, resources and initiative.

Indulging in "pity" is just an opportunity for self-aggrandizing pontification.

I am a doctor working with serial killers, gangsters, rapists, child molesters and sociopaths of every kind ... when I talk to a patient I often offer advice and resources for self-motivated insight. Sometimes I make a difference. Often times I don't.

Bald "pity" is a worthless practice, as far as I'm concerned. It makes about as much sense as writing a folk-song about them. When someone wants to indulge in "pity" without the initiative to make a difference - that's when they become a "bleeding heart."

I don't mean to take shots at the OP. Let's just say I've argued the notion of "pity" before with highly opinionated folks who have never (nor will ever) encounter, experience nor understand the complexities of sociopathy in their personal lives.

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jt6879

No pity here for most crimes, I agree there are some circumstances that are different ie... Mom stealing formula but with WIC and Welfare there is no excuse other than not wanting to wait in line. I wouldn't even go so far as to go out of my way to be kind. But I would be as respectful to them as they are to me, that was my approach when I worked for the dept of prisons

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Fly

some bastard stole my truck the other night.........and the only pity from me is after he gets beat.


fuckin' thieves.

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BASTARD

SterlingStudios

pig

fly,

bastards.

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Fly

thanks pigglet..........


i needed that.

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BASTARD

SterlingStudios

pig

well, i mean the thing is you've got the priorities straight. assholes stole the truck, they get a royal asswhipping, and then you can perhaps start to appreciate the complex set of social and psychological situations that may have led to their ill-advised decision. but for now...

fuck 'em. clean break, or did they leave glass behind?

/oh, is this germane to thread? goddamn right it is: no one says you can't pity and man and beat his ass at the same time. empathy and sympathy ain't the same.

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stevie667

I pity the foo' who don't take my beatin'!

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