Just now I watched a TikTok wherein a man was being interviewed in prison. He committed a double homicide at the age of thirteen and was sentenced at the age of fifteen to 170 years in prison. At fifteen years old he was condemned to a life behind bars.
People can live and live well in many situations; there's also that one phenomenon wherein people tend to feel "fine" about their situations. We adapt and we start taking things for granted, but that also means that when we have nothing we become content. I actually believe the man can lead a "fine" life in prison, and I really don't want to paint him as some sort of miserable fucker wallowing in incarceration. Then again, a life of imprisonment is a life of punishment. He lives to live out his punishment, that is his life's meaning.
I feel like the stigma against incarcerated people is very strong, at least I feel it very strongly. Logically, I know that just because someone did something bad or, more accurately, was convicted of having done something bad, that doesn't mean that they are, fundamentally, a bad person, someone to fear or to avoid. Still, I feel that urge to cross the street. It's not on purpose and it's not conscious, it's not a thought, it's a feeling, but I do feel it. This man though was smart. Not in the sense of being clever but in the sense of being intelligent, of knowing things. He was incredibly well-spoken and well-informed.
That really scared.
Where I live there is not such thing as a life sentence. As a matter of fact, the worst sentence anyone can possibly get is 25 years. That's a long, long time. Maybe it's too long, but it's not a wasted life. At 15 he would've been out by 40. There's a lot left to live at 50. But what kind of world is this that that's what some people have to think like. They have to think not "what can I do today" but "how much can I do after 40". And that man didn't even have that, he lived to serve out his sentence, to serve, he was a slave, nothing but a body in a cage. No representation in a democracy, his rights eroded and discarded, his life thrown away, rotting in the gutter. A double homicide at 13, at 13 years old, and that's his life. That's it.
To me, this doesn't make sense. Something's wrong, clearly. It's so obvious. How can it be that a 13 year old kid is doomed to a life in striped-vision and orange jumpsuits. How can it be that a society punishes someone so ruthlessly.
That's the fundamental dissonance there, I think. It's punishment, nothing more, and I think that's wrong. I understand the urge, just like I feel that push to cross the street, but we have to be logical. When thinking about how to manage each other, we have to think beyond our biases, we have to make sense and not play it by heart. Punishing isn't right, not like this, not to this extent, at least that much is clear.
If I asked you what is best: the 13 year old learns to live peacefully and productively in society or the 13 year old spends the rest of his life behind bars, what would you answer? I can't imagine that anyone would choose the second option, and quite frankly if someone were to pick the second option I would think they're a monster, drained of humanity and empathy. Of course I think of the victims and their families. Two people were killed. Do they not deserve justice? Of course they do, of course. But what is justice, in this case? An eye for an eye; a life for a life? A life for two lives? I can't imagine that's satisfying. They're still dead. But now a kid is dead also.
I can only think of all the people that spend their lives behind bars but don't have that man's intelligence. If you asked them they would speak poorly and they would show their ignorance, they would be filthy and boisterous or disrespectful and rude. It's easy to hate people like that with a second's judgement. How many people are there that did something terrible as kids, as nothing more than kids, and then are condemned to live out pain, but lack the know-how to speak it, screaming with no mouth.
25 years. I wonder if that's the sweet spot. A 13 year old kills two people, two years later gets sentenced and tried as an adult. Spends 25 years in prison, comes out at 40. What do the families think, and what do they say? "My son's murderer walks free while he rots in a grave." "My sister's murderer walks free while maggots eat her face."
I feel so callous, just thinking about that. The only thing I feel like responding with is "So what?" You grieve so a kid must die? An eye for an eye; a life for a life. That's the rule of beasts, I feel. We need to think. Punishment... Maybe there's something to it. Maybe not to help the criminal, maybe it doesn't help there but there's something to be said in appeasing the victims or those that remain to grieve them. Maybe. But to make someone live solely to suffer is cruel beyond belief. It beggars belief, really, it's absurd and has no reason to exist in civilized society.
I don't have answers, it's painfully clear to me that I don't have answers. Still, I think there's at least some value in pointing out problems. Life sentence is wrong. A life for a life is wrong. This kind of punishment, maybe punishment altogether, is wrong.
I go back to the question I posed earlier, but I'll make it more general:
A kid will either die or live. Which will you choose?
If you choose death, I find you guilty of murder.
A man will either die or live. Which will you choose?
If you choose death, I find you guilty of murder.
And though you are a murderer, I choose that you live.