Victim Blaming

I will admit that I am trying to get people interested in my blog by sometimes writing about controversial things.  But I think if we don’t talk about these problems, they will never get better.

So, this topic is in the news lately.  Between the unarmed black men (and children) being shot by police, and the rape victims being slut-shamed, it seems our media is obsessed with explaining away these things without admitting that our system isn’t working and that the powers that be are corrupt.

We can never move forward in reconciling victims and perpetrators until we can talk about the things that happened truthfully.  One of the justice concerns I have regarding the incarceration of so many people is that it doesn’t really help victims or the people responsible for the hurt.  It may help society in the sense that people who commit crimes are not free to keep committing them while they are imprisoned.  But we know that many people become much harder criminals during their time in prison.  When they are released, they are more likely to commit more violent crimes than if they were treated for problems. (see: http://www.prisonfellowship.ca/resources/issues-statistics/)

Quite often, victims and their families want things like to know what really happened, or to make the person understand their hurt.  Of course there are people who just want them executed, but not everyone feels closure over that. 

And when we imprison children, with no access to a “normal” life, they grow up to be exactly the thugs we expect them to be.  It’s one thing to try and rehabilitate a 40 year old person who has assaulted many people over their adult life.  It’s another thing to give up on a kid who’s 14 and never had adults teach him about how to interact in the world.  No chance to get a decent education.  Lost his brothers or sisters to violence.  Police don’t protect people like that.  The justice system doesn’t do a good job of protecting them either. 

To me, the hard part would be figuring out how to protect victims and potential victims while still treating people who have committed crimes as human and redeemable.  As a Christian, or a person who believes in God/gods/cosmic love, etc. it is difficult to justify writing people off when God seems to be making the point over and over again in the Bible that he doesn’t give up on us.  He wants people to be redeemed and become the full person they are created to be.  Some people are so damaged they are dangerous, that’s true.  But a lot of criminals are just a product of the system we abide. 

Why do we accept this system?  This is a bigger topic than I can do in one blog post, but I’m not just talking about the justice system; I’m talking about the inequality between rich and poor that leaves too many people lost in hopelessness where they can’t eat, can’t learn, can’t support themselves with work.  Why aren’t we trying to solve those problems?  Do we really believe that some people deserve that childhood because their parents are messed up? 

What do you think?