Deep inside the Charleston County jail, this program is trying to reach out to men who see crime as the answer. By bringing criminals and crime victims together, teacher Amy Barch hopes to show what happens on the other side of their deeds, brutality and triggers.
“They have the capacity to change and repair harm,” she said.
Whether Barch’s efforts are working is unclear, largely because her “Turning Leafs Project” is in its infancy. But anecdotal information suggests that progress is being made.
I have for quite a few of my 66 years begun seriously to entertain the idea that incarceration at public expense, as we see it instantiated in the U.S. and other modern democratic states, has proven largely a failure. I think this is particularly true with regard to those convicted of non-violent crimes.
Within the past few months I read the following quote from Austrian school economist Murray N. Rothbard, which seemed to me to make great deal of good sense: [blockquote]The idea of primacy for restitution to the victim has great precedent in law; indeed, it is an ancient principle of law which has been allowed to wither away as the State has aggrandized and monopolized the institutions of justice….In face, in the Middle Ages generally, restitution to the victim was the dominant concept of punishment; only as the State grew more powerful…the emphasis shifted from restitution to the victim,…to punishment for the alleged crimes committed “against the State.” … What happens nowadays is the following absurdity: [b]A[/b] steals $15,000 from [b]B[/b]. The government tracks down, tries, and convicts [b]A[/b], all at the expense of [b]B[/b], as one of the numerous taxpayers victimized in this process. Then, the government, instead of forcing [b]A[/b] to repay [b]B[/b] or work at forced labor until that debt is paid, forces [b]B[/b], the victim, to pay taxes to support the criminal in prison for ten or twenty years’ time. Where in the world is the justice here? ([i]The Ethics of Liberty[/i], pp. 86-87)*
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* – Quoted in [i]Democracy: The God That Failed[/i], Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 10th edition, 2011 [footnote 23, pp. 282-283]. [/blockquote] I am rather strongly convinced that some forms of humanely structured indentured servitude would better serve both victims and convicted perpetrators (or at least those of the latter who are susceptible of being eventually restored to living amongst society).
[i]Pax et bonum[/i],
Keith Töpfer