By Nils Christie
I’m a criminologist although I originally studied sociology. My first study regarded the guards in the concentration camps. I’m old enough to have lived through the Second World War and worked on the concentration camps, not only in Germany but also Norway on the Norwegian guards, some of whom were convicted after the end of the war for the terrible way in which they treated their prisoners whereas the majority of them behaved in a perfectly acceptable manner.
This first little study of mine, conducted many years ago now, was also my first study in the field of criminology. What I was trying to find out was whether there was any major difference between these two groups in the same situation, between those who killed and those that did not. Both groups were under German command at that stage and their prisoners were wretched, starving people from Yugoslavia. What I discovered was that there was indeed a difference between them, one that left an indelible mark on my life, namely that the basic difference between them lay in their ability to view the prisoners as human beings, the ability to be close enough to the prisoners to realise that these people who were so wretched, starving, dirty and capable of dropping a friend just be able to get their hands on a crust of bread were just like they themselves would be in those same circumstances.
I think that there are many things that States should act upon, however the issue is not about prison time or no prison time but rather about the number of prisoners, or about prisons, or about money and furthermore, what kind of people are we chucking in prison? This is an important issue for all modern European countries and the fact is that the majority of the people in the jails are from the lowest rungs of the population, in other words these are poor people who have too much of nothing.
They are people who have no money, no schooling, no homes and very often they have no families, no spouses and no children. It is usually these most wretched of people who land up in jail. Most often the main problem is not the crimes that they have committed but rather the fact that they actually become better off than they were before they committed the crimes of which they have been convicted.
I think that it is important to realise that, more often than not, prison is harmful for people. It is there to make people suffer, and this they do. An important part of any civilised country’s prisons policy should be to seek alternatives to imprisonment and very often this means helping them along the road towards an acceptable standard of living: trying to find a home, seeking alternatives in times of unemployment, etc, etc … Then there are people for whom state authority is essential. We had just such a case in Norway, the atrocity that occurred on 22 July a few years ago, where the guilty party blew up a main government building and then proceeded to mercilessly kill a bunch of young socialists at a summer camp, one by one. It would have been unthinkable not to react against someone like that, and react they did.
There is an alternative however, one that I believe to be very promising indeed: we have many cases in Norway where someone harms someone else. There are an increasing number of such cases that we are trying to put before what we call Conflict solving boards – in Europe it is called reparative justice, a term that I dislike for various reasons; what we’re dealing with here is a place where people can meet, namely those who have committed unacceptable deeds and those who see themselves as victims, often rightly so. Here the parties can discuss the problem and attempt to re-establish a good rapport.
After all, this is what we always did before the birth of the supreme state. In every village there was the possibility for people to meet and discuss their problems and with this kind of arrangement the offending party is able to see the victim’s suffering and the victim is able to see the guilty party’s condition, which is often wretched, and that perhaps the “terrible strong man” facade is actually hiding a perfectly normal human being.
As regards pardons, I believe that this is a solution that raises numerous problems. In a democracy in which we can be sure that the State is very trustworthy and the politicians can be trusted it may be all good and well, however, if there is any doubt that the door is perhaps being opened to corruption and unacceptable behaviours, then I’m would not be too keen on granting pardons. I believe that we have to trust the judges and the legal apparatus and not have a sort of open door, a back door if you will, through which certain people can escape justice. If certain people enjoy such a special advantage, this will constitutes a grave danger of mistrust in the justice system. But even more important than this entirely political aspect is the fact that we need to not send too many people to jail. But you guys are not so badly off here in Italy in that your prison population is well within European limits. In England there is this huge database that provides figures with regard to prisons. This database tells me that Italians have 106 prisoners per 100,000 people in the population and we have 73 in Norway, however, as you probably know already, the United States currently has 716 prisoners per 100,000 people. In other words, this prime example of democracy in fact imprisons the most people and is thus the harshest that we know of in our modern industrialised society.
This says a lot about the fact that the increase in the prison population is the result of a particular political system. The system currently in use in the United States has many elements that contribute to creating a gap between the rich and the poor sections of the population and one of the main features of their prison system is the major predominance of black prison inmates.
Furthermore, they have a mandatory sentence system that is extremely difficult to avoid, called the ‘table of sentences’, with extremely harsh penalties, which they deem to be appropriate. However, it’s one thing to think abstractly about the penalty that someone deserves, but it’s totally another matter to see the misery of the guilty party with one’s own eyes.
I can just imagine if I was the one that had committed some or other despicable deed and someone came and dragged me out of my house, in the middle of the night, took me off to some police station and I could see that I was facing days, months or even years locked up in a tiny room that they call a prison cell, and I was subjected to the humiliation of being a prisoner – do you honestly think that I would be worrying about my future life? It is perfectly understandable that these people experience a sense of desperation and it’s equally obvious that we have to try to do something to overcome this phenomenon, by improving the prisons and making them as humane as possible as part of an ongoing attempt to free people and to make our prisons as much like normal life as possible.
However, you guys have a very specific problem with your system, namely the strong presence of organised crime and I acknowledge the fact that you need to prevent this from taking over your prisons.
When we talk about punishment, we face a number of major moral issues and since we come from the same culture, namely the European culture, it is very easy to remind ourselves and others that we should be as benevolent as possible, that we should try to reduce the level of suffering in our society and that there is a lot of suffering that is perhaps unnecessary. We have to reflect on how to address the deviance in a way that takes our most profound moral values into account. Thank you for listening to me and good luck to this Country that I love very much. Goodbye.
This post contains a powerful message. It's time this message went viral. Basil Venitis, venitis@gmail.com, http://themostsearched.blogspot.com, @Venitis
Greece is a kangaroo valley. There are more kangaroos in Greece than in Australia! You can find them in kangaroo courts, handing out kangaroo justice. Les miserables syndrome is the prosecution of a minor infraction which catalyzes a series of major infractions. Innocent people suffer from les miserable syndrome, whereas kleptocrats enjoy impunity. Greek jails are full of les miserables, an injustice which will result in a major revolt against Graecokleptocrats. There is an elasticity limit to how much abuse innocent Greeks could tolerate from their government.
There is no independence of justice in Greece, the most corrupt country in Europe, and perjurers are dime a dozen. The huge Greek judiciary corruption complements the huge political corruption and the police brutality. Extrajudicial rings of judges, prosecutors, policechimps, clergy, and kleptocrats manipulate the Greek justice system. Many judges have been found guilty for participating in trial-fixing rackets. Freak galore!
There is injustice in Greece. Ex officio law suit means the state sues somebody without involvement of the accuser. This terrible scheme has been used by Graecokleptocrats to persecute dissident bloggers. A Graecokleptocrat would sue an innocent dissident blogger, and the Graecokleptocrat wouldn’t show up in court, because the state takes over the position of the accuser!
The court trial is postponed infinite times to break the nerves of the innocent blogger at great cost of time and money. This is a disgusting punishment of the presumed innocent. Justice delayed is justice denied. Justice perpetuated is hell. The Greek government uses the ex officio law suit as a political tool.
Kleptocrats vilify defendants for the benefit of theatre, the circus, and political propaganda. Kleptocrats claim the perpetrator walk, or perp-walk, is customary in order to promote the aims of law enforcement, including the deterrence of criminal conduct and the enhancement of public confidence. Policechimps assist the news media in photographing, taping, recording or televising a law enforcement activity. Even though perp-walk is illegal, it’s done anyway in order to satisfy the vanity of brutal policechimps, the comparative political advantage of the government, and the thirst of hoi polloi for blood.
Most Greeks violate the myriad stupid laws. This enables Graecokleptocrats to intimidate their opponents by selective persecution. For example, there is law that says nobody can park on the sidewalk, but many Greeks park there anyhow! So if a Graecokleptocrat does not like you, he can arrange your persecution for parking your car on your sidewalk! Never mind your neighbor does the same thing and he is not persecuted, because he belongs to another political party.
Greece has a disproportionately large number of professional lawyers, with 400 lawyers per 100,000 inhabitants, compared to a ratio of 150:100,000 in Germany. Every day, new laws are created that make the yoke on citizens much heavier. Every new law is a new constraint on activity. This cannot go forever. Eventually people will revolt. To make it in life, you have to take risks. But this shakes the status quo of kleptocrats, who might lock you in jail! Kleptocrats want you to live a monotonous boring life, enslaved to kleptocratic wishes, under the statist yoke. But this kind of life is not worth living.
Overcriminalization provides prosecutors with unfettered control over broad swaths of criminal adjudication and legislative interpretation. The proliferation of vague and overly broad laws has given prosecutors the ability to stack criminal charges against defendants in a way that diminishes the likelihood of a criminal trial and increases the probability of a guilty plea.
Overcriminalization gives prosecutors vast latitude to secure guilty verdicts. In the interpretive context, the proliferation of vague and overbroad criminal laws has given prosecutors the ability to apply vague, overly broad criminal laws to a vast array of conduct. The prosecutor essentially becomes a lawmaker, providing meaning and context to an otherwise open-ended statute or regulation.
The unprincipled growth of criminal law has also led to the inappropriate delegation of legislative authority to the judicial branch. Judges often must take it upon themselves to create meaning from vague, unbounded criminal offenses such as the honest services fraud statute. When interpreting the large number of imprecise and unclear criminal-intent requirements in statutory and regulatory criminal offenses, judges are essentially co-opted into rewriting the laws and finding meaning where there is none.
It is undoubtedly convenient and expedient for parliaments to create imprecise, hastily drafted criminal laws and allow prosecutors and judges to interpret them as they will. The same can be said about authorizing unelected bureaucrats in agencies to make the crucial criminal-law decisions that will affect citizens' most fundamental rights and liberties. However, the fundamental duty for full deliberation over and precise crafting of every criminal law belongs to parliaments. When a parliament carries out this duty in a haphazard, imprecise manner, or expressly delegates it away to government agencies, both individual
citizens and the nation's system of constitutional government are harmed.
A parliament's overcriminalization expands the power of the government beyond its constitutional limits. The proliferation of vague, overly broad federal criminal laws results in separation-of-powers violations and encroaches upon the rights of innocent citizens. The destructive constitutional implications of overcriminalization are one more compelling reason for parliament to rein in the unbridled and unprincipled growth of criminal statutes and regulations.
citizens and the nation's system of constitutional government are harmed.
A parliament's overcriminalization expands the power of the government beyond its constitutional limits. The proliferation of vague, overly broad federal criminal laws results in separation-of-powers violations and encroaches upon the rights of innocent citizens. The destructive constitutional implications of overcriminalization are one more compelling reason for parliament to rein in the unbridled and unprincipled growth of criminal statutes and regulations.
Criminal law has exploded in size and scope and deteriorated in quality. It used to focus on inherently wrongful conduct: treason, murder, counterfeiting, and the like. Today, an unimaginably broad range of socially and economically beneficial conduct is criminalized. More and more citizens who have worked diligently to abide by the law are being trapped and unjustly punished due to vague, overly broad criminal offenses. Parliaments must halt their overcriminalization rampage.
Overcriminalization is out of control. Before enacting any new criminal law, a parliament should review the questions raised by the criminal law checklist for legislators, which is produced by a wide coalition of organizations. Its questions help ensure that any new criminal laws stay within the bounds of fairness, the rule of law, and the constitution.
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