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Forgiveness, [Rehabilitation] and Convicts - Should one lead a normal life after it all?
21stCentury
Call me Pixel, or Pix for short![They/Them]Registered User regular
Call me Pixel, or Pix for short![They/Them]Registered User regular
So, this happened last week, a convicted murderer (Karla Homolka) who's been freed about 12 years ago has been found again, for the 3rd or 4th time. She was volunteering at her children's school. This caused a lot of outrage.
As a result, She can no longer volunteer at her children's school.
I believe this is her 3rd or 4th relocation and probably not the last because every time someone finds her, Quebec media makes a lot of noise about it.
So, this leads to a big question: Should people convicted of serious crimes be allowed to live a normal life after their release?
As it stands, in Canada and in the US at least, when a convicted criminal is released, after they've "done the time" for their crime, they're pretty much still treated like criminals.
For instance, in the United States, an ex convict cannot vote, obtain many different licenses, including professional licenses preventing them from practicing certain vocations, nor can they get any form of government assistance. And that's not counting how it is 100% legal for people to discriminate against felons when they're seeking employment or housing. In other words, after a convicted felon is released, people are pretty much encouraged to follow their instinct and shun them, preventing social reinsertion.
Canada is a lot less harsh, however, since apparently the only rules for ex-convicts are to report to a parole officer, abide by some conditions (avoiding alcohol or certain people) and sometimes do community service or get counseling. (source) It may be less harsh officially, but the way they're treated is similar. Many convicted murderers who are out of the penal system still have a lot of trouble returning to society because, understandably, many people don't want to trust them.
I don't want this thread to be solely about the Homolka case since, understandably, a lot of people feel she did not actually purge the full extent of her debt against society because she allegedly lied to escape life behind bars. My stance on this particular situation is that she spent the last 12 years free and all we ever hear about are other people outing her. She has kept the peace, AFAIK.
What I DO want this thread to be about is a discussion on how far societies should go for the reinsertion of convicted criminals in society, even murderers.
I feel like if society is set up to give someone a second chance at life, it really shouldn't be a fake-out. I don't think it's fair to tell someone "If you spend the next 20 years of your life behind bars, you'll be free when you get out" only to tell them "Psyche, actually you can't get a job or housing legally. fuck you." after they're out.
As a result, She can no longer volunteer at her children's school.
Convicted killer Karla Homolka will no longer volunteer at a private elementary school in Nôtre-Dame-de-Grace.
After reports surfaced Tuesday that Greaves Adventist Academy had allowed Homolka to supervise students on a field trip in March, the school initially defended its decision. In fact, one parent said administrators asked him not to send his child back to the school next semester after he complained about Homolka interacting with students.
The academy, a private Christian school, appeared to walk back its stance Thursday.
“We have heard and listened to the concerns of parents and members of the community uncomfortable with recent reports in the media,” a statement from the school reads. “No one with a criminal record will be allowed to volunteer in any capacity on school grounds.”
Under provincial law, anyone who wishes to volunteer at a school must undergo a criminal background check. Asked if the school applied this scrutiny to Homolka before the field trip, a representative from Greaves Adventist Academy said they were aware of her notorious past.
Parents at the school first became aware of Homolka’s presence on campus after a neighbourhood man passed out leaflets about her crimes.
“When I first read the (leaflet), I thought it was a hoax,” said Andy Maraj, whose daughter attends Grade 3 with one of Homolka’s children. “But then I saw her and I saw her walking around with her dog for the children to play with. I told my daughter: ‘This lady, I don’t want you to go near her please. If she calls you, don’t go near her and call me,’ because I don’t trust the school.”
Homolka served 12 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the deaths of two schoolgirls, Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French. She was released from prison in 2005.
I believe this is her 3rd or 4th relocation and probably not the last because every time someone finds her, Quebec media makes a lot of noise about it.
So, this leads to a big question: Should people convicted of serious crimes be allowed to live a normal life after their release?
As it stands, in Canada and in the US at least, when a convicted criminal is released, after they've "done the time" for their crime, they're pretty much still treated like criminals.
For instance, in the United States, an ex convict cannot vote, obtain many different licenses, including professional licenses preventing them from practicing certain vocations, nor can they get any form of government assistance. And that's not counting how it is 100% legal for people to discriminate against felons when they're seeking employment or housing. In other words, after a convicted felon is released, people are pretty much encouraged to follow their instinct and shun them, preventing social reinsertion.
Canada is a lot less harsh, however, since apparently the only rules for ex-convicts are to report to a parole officer, abide by some conditions (avoiding alcohol or certain people) and sometimes do community service or get counseling. (source) It may be less harsh officially, but the way they're treated is similar. Many convicted murderers who are out of the penal system still have a lot of trouble returning to society because, understandably, many people don't want to trust them.
I don't want this thread to be solely about the Homolka case since, understandably, a lot of people feel she did not actually purge the full extent of her debt against society because she allegedly lied to escape life behind bars. My stance on this particular situation is that she spent the last 12 years free and all we ever hear about are other people outing her. She has kept the peace, AFAIK.
What I DO want this thread to be about is a discussion on how far societies should go for the reinsertion of convicted criminals in society, even murderers.
I feel like if society is set up to give someone a second chance at life, it really shouldn't be a fake-out. I don't think it's fair to tell someone "If you spend the next 20 years of your life behind bars, you'll be free when you get out" only to tell them "Psyche, actually you can't get a job or housing legally. fuck you." after they're out.
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If the government wishes to punish them further for the crime, this should be assigned at sentencing by a judge and jury. Not in an adhoc nature by local laws etc.
Clearly we cannot and should not mandate how the public feels about someone, but in the eyes of the law no punishment should exist which is not assigned at trial in an official capacity.
Doesn't that just feed into the never ending cycle of crime? I am not in a position to look up statistics right now, but isn't the main cause of recidivism the reality that many opportunities available to the average citizen is no longer available to them? Social mobility is hard enough for people who have never been convicted of a crime.
We can't literally police thought, no, but society, media, and our government should do a better job of, I dunno, promoting positive optimism rather than the fearmongering bullshit that pervades modern society and propagates attitudes that lead to situations such as what is described in the OP.
edit: "Our" in my case is the US. I know this story is about Quebec but I'm pretty sure this kind of stuff happens in the US, too.
It would be better if the government would get out of the punishment business entirely, and focus instead on the assessment and preservation of public safety. That woman participated in the rape and murder of children, including her own younger sister. I don't care whether she spent enough time behind bars to "pay back her debt to society", nor do I really understand how, if the problem is that she made people suffer and die, the solution is more suffering (edit: even if it's the suffering of someone who did something terrible--two wrongs still don't make a right in my mind). I do care about steps being taken to ensure that that woman doesn't murder any more people. There are reasonable limits that can be placed on a person with her sort of history.
As far as I can tell, the attitude in Québec is about the same as in the US. In theory, we have some legal protections against discrimination, but in practice we do not have protections against discrimination.
The main difference is that Canadians have the right to vote, no matter what, but that's not exactly helpful when it comes to getting and keeping a good job, and reintegrating society in general.
Then those limits should be explicitly laid out and assigned by a judge as part of her sentencing, and subject to the exact same requirements for...
1) Not cruel or unusual
2) Comprehension and clarity
3) Appeal and review
As any other part of her punishment.
Assign whatever punishment you want in an official capacity, but beyond that it is not the job of law enforcement to do anything about this woman (or someone like her)
This is exasperated by the privatization of the prison system in the US. When prisons are run as for-profit industries, it's no surprise that these industries will take steps to create a future market by encouraging recidivism to occur.
A big part of the problem is that, in practice, society does not seem to accept the very concept of rehabilitation.
Homolka is a good example of that: she's not the one causing problems or seeking notoriety, but she keeps making the news as soon as someone recognizes her.
Is she really not causing problems, though? As far as I'm aware, she didn't have to volunteer at the school, and its pretty easy to understand why parents of other children at that school would find the prospect of her being around their children and in a supervisory role to be deeply unsettling. Some really questionable decision-making all around, in my opinion.
One's freedom to do what they want should not be impugned upon because others find it "unsettling" or "uncomfortable" or even "scary".
It's that logic that leads to bathroom bills, segregation, and all sorts of racist/sexist/bigoted behaviors.
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I mean, she's trying to reintegrate society by doing essentially community service. And then someone recognizes her and distributes tracts around the neighborhood warning parents.
I don't think she's out of line or in the wrong here.
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Yes because fear of black or trans people is so comparable to fear that someone who participated in the torture, rape, and murder teenage girls on three separate occasions might in fact not be a suitable supervisor of children.
Also a key part of her being released at all was that she struck a plea bargain in exchange for testimony against her husband, while claiming to be an unwilling bystander to her abusive spouses crimes, and not the active participant she was revealed to be in video tapes discovered later. Had those tapes been found earlier she would not have managed to secure early release.
She was given a plea deal to testify against her husband.... And shortly after tapes were found showing that she was not the unwilling participant she made the police believe.
She helped rape and murder some young women. I personally do not feel like she has been "rehabilitated" as the whole process stated with blatant lies.
Part of reintegrating into society is demonstrating an understanding of the people around you, their values, and their interests. If you went to prison for killing children, why in the world would you ever think that it would be acceptable for you to work with children later? I don't know if that's the sort of thing anyone can legitimately expect to truly put behind them. If that woman wanted to earn the trust of the community by doing good works, that's fine, but pick works that aren't going to hearken back to her monstrous past.
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Because the sentence did not include that.
If you think such actions merit prohibiting someone from ever working with children again, get the law changed to add it to the sentence. Because otherwise this is nothing more than fearmongering.
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Are you actually suggesting that schools can't implement a volunteer policy, for example, that there will be criminal background checks done for all volunteers that may come in direct contact with children or other vulnerable individuals, and that volunteer candidates who have a violent criminal past may be rejected? Seems like a weird position to hold, and maybe I'm not understanding something about what you're trying to say.
Criminal law is not the only acceptable means by which people can take action. It should be changed to accommodate cases like Homolka's, perhaps, but in the interim, a woman who helped to rape and murder children for pleasure and seemed to deceive her way to a lighter sentence is working with children.
Parents have no responsibility whatsoever to participate in her potential social readjustment or assume the risks of what seems to be a potentially shaky rehabilitation process.
I think as a society we DO have a responsibility to assume the risks of rehabilitative justice, but this is very much an edge case.
It is not absurd to suggest that some particularly heinous crimes have indelible, lifelong consequences. I don't think she has the right to work with children. Teachers in Ontario have to pass an extensive background check, and can be rejected on that basis; we have a very high bar for working with children in many fields. Nobody has the right.
Not having raped and murdered children is, I think, not an unreasonable criterion.
It would have if she had been held to account for her crimes.
Homolka is a shit example because she escaped justice. If I shoot a man in the street, get off on a technicality, and only pay a fine for a speeding ticket as I fled the scene, I haven't "paid my debt to society." It's unreasonable to expect my neighbors to treat me as if I had in this extreme example.
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100% This
I believe in rehabilitation. I've personally done stuff as a youth and was in trouble with the law... Really helped me put things in perspective and get my act together and to deny that chance to others is cruel.
Hamolka on the other hand gamed the system to avoid the same hole her boyfriend is in.
She drugged, raped and tried to cover up the murder of her teenage sister.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karla_Homolka
There are crimes that I personally believe should keep you incarcerated for life. She is one of those.
However, it is clear that rehabilitation, reintegration, and a certain level of risk to the public are actually more conducive to public safety. The gamble is worthwhile because without those reintegration efforts, violent offenders will not get the chance to reintegrate, and they will only continue to swell the ranks of a prison system that (despite our best efforts) tends to harden and reinforce criminality. The vast majority of violent offenders are not primetime psychopaths who kill for pleasure. Many of them can be reached, and the more support and connection they have, the more likely they are to reintegrate. We just do not have the resources to simply imprison every violent criminal indefinitely, and that's aside from the many moral arguments against doing so.
Again, this is the explicit position of CSC. I don't know how that bears out in practical terms, honestly, or how much is just lip service, but it's a very different system from the US's, despite the strenuous objections of tough-on-crime conservatives who have no idea (or don't care) how a correctional system can be optimized even from a hard-nosed, practical perspective.
I am unceacingly surprised and angered at how stupid humanity is. Society wants to lower crime rates, so we do everything we can to fucking increase crime rates. We're worse than animals, I swear.
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However, if a job requires unsupervised contact with a vulnerable population that you previously victimized - say, children - I don't have a problem with the ex-con being barred from that type of job. There's a middle ground between "literally unhireable" and "completely reintegrated member of society."
Let alone volunteer opportunities, which by definition aren't necessary to eat or pay rent.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
But ex-criminals who have served their time should have all the same opportunities as anyone else, especially if they've been out for a decade+. They should get federal help when needed (and it should be a given once they get out to let them get set up again and have a fucking chance) and be able to work any job they want and just in general be entitled to anything any other citizen is entitled too.
But the only exception I would have to that, is people who were convicted harming or exploiting the vulnerable. Namely.. Children, Elderly and the Disabled. This woman was part of a team that serially raped and murdered children, and while I believe she deserves all the rights of any other citizen as far as voting, government aid, and so forth for having served her time.. she shouldn't be allowed to work with or around children. Nor should elder abusers ever be allowed to be put in a position over the elderly again. Children, the Elderly, and Disabled persons are at greater risk, and deserve greater protections from those who may predate upon them due to lessened ability to defend themselves.
On a related topic, fuck the news for continuing to stalk and harass her all this time later.
The main feeling I have is that non-law enforcement individuals shouldn't be taking things into their own hands with people who have been released from prison. That goes both ways, in that people who are rehabilitated and served their sentence should be able to live a normal life, otherwise it's just an extended punishment tacked onto their prison time that lasts for the rest of their life. But then also as is maybe the case with the woman in the OP, people shouldn't have to recognize her and discover who she is and look up the things the law maybe overlooked in her case and then take steps personally to make sure she isn't acting in a way the law really should have (if the circumstances are accurate) restricted her from as terms of her release.
Once you're out of prison you should either be legally a regular citizen again or legally a citizen under restrictions. Let the law determine based on individual circumstances and/or crimes, don't just have it be a catch-all where prison is basically forever you can never make up for it or escape its shadow.
And absolutely people convicted of crimes should be able to vote, it's fucking ridiculous that they can't.
While I mostly agree, the rub is who gets to decide when an ex-con should be barred? Because society at large will always err on the side of caution and ex-cons will be barred from basically everything, no matter how tangential to their crime.
But on the flip side, if only courts can decide which jobs are off limits it becomes much easier for ex-cons to game the system and get jobs in positions they probably shouldn't have.
that sounds like a great way to drive people back into a life of crime
The thing about Homolka is that this is not a normal murder case, even putting aside the events that occurred during trial. As weird as that sounds.
I mean, there are murderers who murder people in such a way or with motivations that can be commonly understood by most people. Rage or greed or jealousy, or whatnot. Homolka's motivations - at least, based on what we know - are probably beyond many people's understanding. Her acts are somewhat incomprehensible to people; with murder already being an act beyond the socially normative bounds of acceptable human behaviour, her character is perceived as being even further beyond them, past some "next" set of bounds.
And, in at least this particular case, the life she was living was not ... maybe not abnormal, but it involved being in a position of power with vulnerable people, a position that most people are not in. So - and I can't believe I'm espousing a "think of the children" line of thinking - this isn't quite the same as preventing her from living a normal life. This isn't quite the same as if she were a bank teller or a restaurant cook.
So when I think about the question of the thread title, ... I mean, is this a normal situation? And yeah, I'm just talking about various gradients of normal here, but I think there is at least some space between Karla Homolka and a "normal" murderer trying to live a "normal" life into which an individual could rationally fall.
What dole? We don't have a dole.
Our unemployment insurance only kicks in if you were recently working a job and earning wages. Somebody who just left prison (or college, or their parents' house, for that matter) is not eligible.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Well, I would start by cutting off private background check agencies that track convictions.
We don't need to make criminal convictions public records. There are systems already in place where a criminal conviction is a sealed record under certain circumstances. California does this if you're a non-violent drug offenders and you complete a court-approved drug rehabilitation program. Once you've passed your program, your conviction is sealed and off-limits to private background check agencies.
(Sometimes background check agencies manage to get hold of it anyway, and the ex-convict has to fight to get the record purged.)
However, the records are not off-limits to certain public agencies, and can be re-opened as part of a background check if you're applying for a law enforcement position. (Possibly some other positions too that I'm not aware of.)
So California has ended up with sort of a de facto two-tier system for non-violent drug offenders. For most jobs, your conviction is private, but for some jobs it's not.
We could treat criminal records like we do medical records under HIPAA. They're considered private except for a handful of situations where an authorized entity might inspect them without your permission. One of those situations could be if you're applying for a job where you work with vulnerable populations.
I don't harbor a whole lot of hope that this sort of policy is politically feasible in the US on a national level, but we might be able to enact similar systems in blue states with regards to drug offenses. The War on Drugs is unpopular enough that I could see this sort of post-release amnesty for nonviolent drug offenders in states other than California.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
How far are you willing to take the bolded statement? Is it inappropriate for a woman to stay away from Brock Turner now that he's completed the term of his sentence for sexual assault?
There's a difference between avoiding Brock Turner and hiring someone out of your own pocket to follow him and tell everyone he's a rapist.
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If whoever this Brock Turner person is served his sentence without issue and the State determined that he is not at risk of recidivism so doesn't need continuous monitoring then yes, I think he should be allowed to live a normal life. Going out for dinner, having a job somewhere, voting for his candidate of choice, etc.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
but I mean, his case really gets to the crux of the issue, which is that popular sentiment really shouldn't be acting as a secondary enforcement mechanism.
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