The horrible crime (a young girl tortured, raped, murdered) tried just now by the juvenile assize court of Haute Loire does not call for any compassion for the perpetrator. And the verdict, which sentenced him to life in prison, with virtually no possibility of release, is understandable.
But I cannot help thinking that this is not only a total mess, but also an opportunity to reflect on the very nature of the social response to violence.
First, the national community is infinitely guilty for having allowed this young man to walk free, after a first crime of the same nature (torture and rape), without oversight, without the officials of the school where his parents had enrolled him even knowing the nature of his crime. So the stage was set for this young man to succumb to his impulses and to commit a second crime, more horrific than the first one since it resulted in the death of his victim.
Then, because I believe this is an opportunity to reflect on the prison system. What is it for? Is it to punish, to deter others from the commission of crimes? No. For fear of prison has never stopped anybody from taking action. Is it to punish in order to deter the same person from repeating his offences? No. For being thrown in jail often transforms a petty criminal into a serious offender. Is it to exclude a criminal? No. Unless he is put in prison for life, as is the case in the United States for any criminal, for people who commit the most serious crimes more than once.
In fact, it is the only justification we can admit for prisons: to exclude definitely an individual who was unable to obey the laws of society. But how should we classify the severity of the crime that would condemn someone to die while living? Then we understand the insanity of that type of logic.
I firmly believe that, in a century, prison will appear to our grandchildren as barbaric as the death penalty is to us today. And it will be necessary to find new solutions. And to achieve this, we will have to go back to basics: in our societies, the state has in principle the monopoly of violence, by prohibiting others from using it. It exerts this violence by enforcing the law, whether democratic or not. Whether it involves the death penalty or prison.
But must we confine ourselves to the debate of knowing who has the right to the exerting of violence, or must we instead seek its eradication? Must we consider violence as an essential dimension of human nature? And must we be content to control its signs and symptoms? If this is the case, then, the State has every right, including that of mistreating violent people that have been arrested. And it is not through some little or major effort in the prison system planning, that we will come out of this reality.
The only way to do this would be to think about the very origins of violence, to make them disappear. It makes no sense when our world dedicates so little means of searching to this simple question: How can we reduce human violence? Yet many paths do exist, which is through implementation of advances in techniques of meditation and self-control, and discoveries in neuroscience; they may be relevant to understanding what is the cause of violence, guide our impulses and channel them into positive energy, towards love and altruism; and when it is not possible, to create the conditions for a chemical or digital control of these impulses: one day, we will know enough about the human brain to put an end in time to the act of any criminal. If possible democratically.
In the meantime, let’s recognize that every society is, and must be, as barbaric as those that it claims to make powerless to do harm. Let’s keep seeking out.
j@attali.com