Lest the Punishment fit the Crime

I’ve been thinking about Crime a lot lately for several reasons.

Firstly, there’s the whole Trump thing... if you don’t know what I’m talking about, feel free to look up the various crimes against justice, humanity and decency in your own time. I am sick of Donald Trump, I hear about his bullshit all the time, and I’m done – if America doesn’t do the right thing and get rid of him, then they deserve him. I am genuinely upset that the shooter missed. That is all.
Secondly, I’ve been listening to a lot of True Crime podcasts lately. I started listening to do research for a story I’m working on, but I’ve learned a lot, but I’ll tell you a bit about it in a later blog post.
Thirdly, and much more interestingly, in Australia we somewhat recently had a new ruling in regards to asylum seekers. See, in Australia, when people legally come to this country seeking asylum, we lock them away in detention centres. When someone seeks asylum (meaning they are being persecuted by their country of origin) because they cannot return to their home country, we’re meant to grant them asylum... but we don’t – I know I wrote it in in 2014, but even 10 years later, this blog post is still just as accurate. If you are seeking asylum without a visa, you are a legal expatriate – all this mumbling about “processing people” and detaining them is just a lie to excuse a disgusting, xenophobic practice, which gave our government an excuse to force people back to their home country... but, when you’re being persecuted, that doesn’t always work. See, it turns out, in some cases, this meant that people were locked in a loop of:

1. Your Visa/Asylum was Denied

2. Australia decides to Deport You to Your Country of Origin

3. Your Country of Origin refuses to Accept You back... → repeat Step 2.

Locking people in a loop meant we could basically detain any asylum seeker indefinitely.

This was just insane... so insane, it turns out, that even the High Court had to stop jerking off long enough to agree with me (y’know, because I’m right) and ban this practice.
Now, before we go patting the High Court on the back for a job well done, remember, the High Court of Australia still endorses human rights abuses... indefinite detention is still perfectly legal if your country refuses to accept “forcible deportation” and the detainee “refuses to leave voluntarily”. Which is literally how many abusive relationships work... always great when your country is violating human rights, and when asked why they try blaming the victim due to a bureaucratic technicality...

But anyway, I’m getting side-tracked bitching about the government, so let’s talk about the positive thing here. If there is literally no way for you to be returned to your Country of Origin, it was determined that this counted as “Indefinite Detainment”, which was illegal, so by order of the High Court of Australia, several detention centres were forced to let these people go free, granting them asylum. Cool, right?

Well, I thought so... I still think so. I’m not a fan of violating human rights – a quirk of mine, I guess.
But, the Australian media disagrees. See, as soon as these people were let out, a LOT of media commentators started crying foul.

“But, that one’s a rapist!”, “Hey, this one’s a child molester!” “that one even killed people!”

And they started to decry how wrong it was that the government was releasing a bunch of criminals onto the Australian mainland. Without naming names, I’ve even spoken to people who’ve said that whilst they agree with me that the High Court made the right decision in banning (this particular form of) discriminatory, indefinite detention, it was still unfortunate that they let so many criminals into Australia.
And I feel like I’m alone in this, because I want criminals in Australia. Do you know why?

It’s simple: Criminals are People

Some of this is based on my belief that Borders are Bullshit, but even if you don’t follow my radically anti-nationalist stance, you need only agree that we should treat people equitably, and that no person should be treated differently due to circumstances they can’t control. Hell, even the High Court of Australia agrees with that... it even weaponized it to punish asylum seekers—

[Editor’s Note: I would like to take this moment to apologize on behalf of the writer, as he keeps continuously whinging about the human rights violations being committed by his home country. Whilst it is the position of this Blog that this is a topic of concern, it is not the focus of this blog post, and so any further digressions in this regard will be expunged. I promise to do better in the next blog post... hold on, aren't I both the editor and the writer... y’know what? This is a weird joke, let's get back to the blog post.]

—my point is, If I punch my sister, and my punishment is that I go to bed without dinner, then my sister punches me and her punishment is that she whipped with father’s belt, that’s obviously unfair. Punishments should be fair. Even without getting into the idea of cruel and unusual punishment, “an eye for an eye” is fair, insofar as every crime should have an equivalent punishment... and exactly no further, as that’s a horrible policy, even if we don’t get into the cruel and unusual thing. Man, I need better clichés.

However, when we deport criminals in this country, that’s not fair. We’re saying that the punishment for a crime is capture and punishment (from paying a fine, to jail time)... unless you’re a foreigner, in which case the punishment is being forcibly removed from the country, to be dealt with by their legal system. That, plain and simple, isn’t fair. Not to mention, discrimination.

Australian Criminal = Punishment

Foreign Criminal = Punishment + Deportation.

I suck at maths, and even I can see that that doesn’t add up. So, does that mean that I think criminals should be freely allowed to walk the streets?

To which the only reasonable answer I can give is: They already do, my dude. You do realize that every criminal that has ever been to prison is now allowed to walk the streets – scary prospect, I know...

[Editor’s Note: I don’t think my sarcasm came across well enough in that last line, allow me to reiterate my point—oH nO! tHeY jUsT lEt CrImInAlS oUt Of PrIsOn?! HoW AwFuL...]

I’m friends with several criminals, I’ve worked with a few—what can I say, I’ve been in the hospitality industry, it just seems to go with the territory—and they’re good people. I mean, I didn’t like that one guy... but that wasn’t because of his crime, he was just too unreliable, but I liked the rest of them! My point is, the fact that these people have committed crimes doesn’t change the fact that they deserve every freedom available to every other person in this country.
It honestly boggles my mind that some people are saying “but they’re criminals, what if they do something horrible while they’re in this country?” and I’m thinking... isn’t that what the police are for? Y’know, they hunt down and catch criminals... I’ve seen it on about a dozen different television shows, all made by some guy named Dick Wolf.

Whilst it is true, some of the people involved in this high court release have committed some of the worst crimes imaginable, including child rape and murder, and that is bad – they’ve also already served their time. I know that for two reasons:

1. If they hadn’t been convicted then we wouldn’t be calling them criminals, we’d be saying they were “alleged” criminals. It’s one of those legal/ethical things, news reporters aren’t allowed to just call you a criminal unless and until you’ve been declared so by a court of law.
2. If they were fleeing justice, then countries wouldn’t be refusing to accept them, instead they’d be demanding extradition. Countries tend to get kinda pissy when you try to side-step their legal system.

If I’ve somehow missed something, and there is a criminal out there who has escaped justice, then sure, we should detain that person... in a prison, like anyone else.
Some of these people talk about foreign criminals, the same way you would dinosaurs hiding in human costume. The second you turn your back, they’ll rip off their skin, and a tyrannosaurus will start rampaging the city. RARRGH, SMASH, GRARRNGH! HRROO–

[Editor’s Note: The writer wasted the next several pages typing out the onomatopoeia for a wild dinosaur attacking a city, being confronted by the military and then dying tragically in a scene that was a blatant ripoff of the climax to infamous box-office flop “Godzilla” (1998). I have decided to redact it for the sake of your time, sanity and human decency.]

It really is ridiculous. But,just like a time-displaced dinosaur creature dying on the streets of New York City, that is the real tragedy here...
It’s like the label of “criminal” is enough to override a person’s humanity, or a human’s personhood, if you will. “Criminal” is a cultural stain that will never wash out of your identity, and whether or not you think that’s appropriate all the time, or even some of the time, it is a fact that we should never let that stain hide the fact that there’s a person in there. Yes, even the worst people imaginable. Yes, even the really bad guy you’re thinking of. Hell, even the worst possible person that I’m thinking of. Yes... [sigh] even Trump.
Even if a human being is a terrible human being, a terrible person, perhaps even if someone qualifies for the title of not just “criminal”, but “monster” – they still need to be treated fairly. Because that’s how fairness works: balance. The second you start trying to push people beyond the margins of equality, once you start deciding who deserves the rights that you think “everyone” deserves, the system becomes imbalanced, and you get conflict.

And yeah, this is a broken system... a LOT of conflict comes from the fact that this system is imbalanced. But the first step towards putting anything into balance is always the same. Whether it’s a picture hanging on your wall, or the entire concept of criminal jurisprudence... before anything can change, someone first needs to speak up and say “Hey, does that look crooked to you?”

Because it sure as hell looks crooked to me, and in the coming posts, I’m going to talk about it. I hope you join me...