Jean Valjean was found guilty: The terms of the penal code were explicit. In our civilization there are fearful times when the criminal law wrecks a man. How mournful the moment when society draws back and permits the irreparable loss of a sentient being. – Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
The action in the musical version of Les Misérables begins when Jean Valjean is released from prison. After his release, his identity as a convict bars him from work, shelter, and human company, until he meets a saintly bishop, and his character arc kicks into gear.
For the condemned in our prisons, there is no guarantee of a kindly bishop or an operatic epiphany. Released prisoners face the same kind of discrimination suffered by Valjean, with similarly tragic consequences.
Across the country, grassroots activists have urged state and local governments to pass “Ban the Box” legislation. These bills would prevent public-sector employers from asking job candidates to indicate if they have a criminal history in their initial application. This legislation doesn’t blindside employers; a criminal conviction will still turn up in a background check made, once the employer has decided to make a conditional offer of employment.
What Ban the Box bills do is keep criminal histories from being an immediate disqualification from a job. If former prisoners cannot reenter the workforce on release, they are likely to turn back to criminal activities. Too many former prisoners share Valjean’s experience of being turned away from honest work because of stigma or stagnation of skills behind bars. Training and welcoming former prisoners makes us safer by lowering the risk of recidivism. But, too often, we ignore pragmatic concerns in favor of the self-righteousness of Javert, the police inspector who cannot forgive or acknowledge a prisoner as his equal.
When Jean Valjean appears for the first time in the stage musical Les Misérables, he is in the process of being paroled, and he is in an argument with his former jailer. When Inspector Javert barks out “You are a thief,” Valjean replies, “I stole a loaf of bread.” For Valjean, his crime is an action in the past, regretted and repented. From Javert’s point of view, the crime isn’t something Valjean did; it’s something he is, now and forever.
Our criminal justice system frequently takes the same view. Over five million citizens are denied the right to vote because they have committed a felony. Disenfranchisement is not akin to parole check-ins or other prudent defenses against recidivism. It is a denial of the former prisoner’s membership in the body politic.
When a prisoner’s sentence is finished, the debt between him and society is settled. The time served made restitution for the crime committed, so now the criminal justice system must reintegrate him into full participation in society. If prison does not prepare prisoners to become full, happy, healthy citizens, we have not held up our end of the bargain. The social contract and the bounds of civil society demand this much of us.
But even if a person breaks his part of the social contract by breaking the law, the criminal has a higher claim on us than that of mere citizenship. His membership in the human family cannot be dissolved any more than any act, however abhorrent, can break the bond between brother and sister. His human dignity demands our care and compassion, even if he is fallen so far as to reject help.
A criminal justice system that is not oriented toward rehabilitation and restoration answers one injustice with another. Two people are wounded by a crime: the victim and the person who has made the choice to victimize another. The more severe the crime, the greater the wound to the criminal’s character and the more urgent the need for healing. Justice strives to make the victim whole and heal the victimizer, so that both can live full and compassionate lives. The life of the victim is not restored by throttling the soul of the criminal.
And it does no service to the soul of society. If our prisons are full of Valjeans, our body politic is thronged with Javerts. Near the end of the show, the inspector’s rigidity and hatred of mercy drive him to suicide. With one out of every hundred American adults in prison, our callousness is no less fatal.
Leah Libresco blogs for Patheos’s Catholic portal at Unequally Yoked.
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Comments:
The premise seems to be that we, as a society, have a duty to ensure that felons, after their release (or before?) are rehabilitated into society as much as possible, including lifting (or mitigating) the perpetual stamp of "Felon" on their record. While I think there may be ways to do so (lifting the stamp for those with non-violent crimes - possession of marijuana, for instance, or prostitution, or rent-gouging - see here: http://ypdcrime.com/penal.law/e_felonies.htm), a blanket such as some suggest does not take into account the following responses to your arguments:
"If former prisoners cannot reenter the workforce on release, they are likely to turn back to criminal activities."
This statement ignores, I think, the reason the people became felons in the first place. That is, it is a rational choice based on ease of entry and self-control. Theodore Dalrymple, a British prison psychologist, has written extensively on the rational decisions made by criminals. To add to that, look at the prior rap sheets of many entering felons - what do you see? Certainly, other felonies, as you note. But one also sees a list of misdemeanors, which would be much less likely to cause stigma, especially if some time had passed between them crime and the application. In addition, prison is likely to be the best environment for many people - better food, better living conditions, easier life - no need to support children (see below), deal with a wife, have rent payments, no need to get up and go to work....some prisoners may, deliberately or subconsciously, wish to be in prison rather than working. Therefore, crime is a rational choice.
I also dispute your statement "reenter the workforce" - most of these felons were never in the workforce to begin with. Working in family law, it is not uncommon to see child support arrearages in the $10,000+ range, with $50,000 the largest number I have heard personally. The fathers (and they are almost always fathers - see here, for instance: http://www.theindychannel.com/news/local-news/judge-family-law-professor-offer-solutions-for-states-23-billion-child-support-problem) simply do not work. Some are felons, but many are not, and many have simply gone about reproducing and living on state welfare benefits. The idea that they could reenter the workforce, felon or not, presumes the idea that they were ever in it.
As John Paul II reiterated in his address to a new U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, the Founders of America "clearly understood that there could be no true freedom without moral responsibility and accountability, and no happiness without respect and support for the natural units or groupings through which people exist, develop, and seek the higher purposes of life in concert with others." Those who chose crime, who choose never to enter the workforce in any way, have chosen not to exercise self-governance, and therefore, they will be governed from without.
Good article :)
Really? They're all in prison for stealing food?
Actually, a very large percentage are in jail for posetion of "illegal" drugs. Stealing food, on the other side, is a real crime (theft).
So you are saying that a human being, endowed with reason, once he makes a bad judgement, can never learn from his mistake?? Are you equating men with how Catholics understand "angels," that there is one decision between good and evil, and if they fail, they can never go the other way? Seems extreme. I bet you are a proponent of minimum sentencing laws as well . . . .
But we should also keep in mind that Javert is not merely a "self-righteous" hater of mercy.
Recall that he's "from the gutter, too." Javert's love of order and intense (dogmatic?) fealty to the law stems from his intimate knowledge of disorder and lawlessness—knowledge many of us are thankfully spared from ever acquiring.
Who among us has not demonstrated that he has lacked good judgment? We are humans - sinners - and all of us make mistakes in judgment. I'm a pretty good guy, but if I were to list the times I lacked good judgment, I would surely exceed the 300 word limit of this box by thousands of words. And I know this beyond a shadow of a doubt. The longer I live, the more I realize that there are so many times in my life when one of my errors in judgment might have gotten me into legal trouble (e.g. driving while mildly intoxicated, running a red light, creative accounting on tax forms, etc.).
Hugo has a strong lesson to teach government and law enforcement about the need for mercy as a balance to justice. In fact, Les Misérables happens to be my favorite book and musical for that very reason. Would it surprise the writer to learn that 99% of law enforcement recognizes the difference between a hardened criminal and the first time high school aged shoplifter? Does it surprise you that sometimes the distinction is not immediately evident?
Hugo is correct; there are “times when the criminal law wrecks a man”. There are even a few instances in our vaunted American system where an innocent man is convicted or an otherwise innocuous man is overly punished. However, this system gives every reasonable (and some unreasonable) advantage to the accused. Let me assure you, there are many times more guilty walking the streets preying on the truly innocent than there are innocent serving hard time.
# 1 United States: 2,019,234 prisoners
# 2 China: 1,549,000 prisoners
# 3 Russia: 846,967 prisoners
# 4 India: 313,635 prisoners
# 5 Brazil: 308,304 prisoners
# 6 Thailand: 213,815 prisoners
# 7 Ukraine: 198,386 prisoners
We in America think we're so much nicer than North Koreans and their ilk, or those cruel old-time jailers. Are we? Our prisons are a training ground in evil. If we had the will to impose order (and to stop feeding prisoners meat and TV), they might actually come out better than they go in.
Really? They're all in prison for stealing food?