Transcript
Crime + Punishment By J. Carr 2-18-12 Saturday The history of crime is one in which perceptions, ideologies, oracles and so on determined just who was felonious, and who wasn't. The punishment, often in misguided ministrations, burgeoned upon a possible criminal act itself? It is easy to sit from without the spectrum of good and evil, and pronounce a penalty for offenses, it is compounded hell to walk the road of [actual?] retribution. Jesus said it best of the executors of purported justice, "ye strain at a gnat, yet ye swallow a camel". So unprecedented corruption takes ahold of the system, and lady justice will be compelled to at least take a peak. What the old girl sees will loosen her girdle, the poets of persecution, parading as representatives of the people, where does their fire come from? Did not those same characters play sports with us felons, did not they chase the same urban or suburban [halls?] of sweet dreams? Now when the winds of change blew some in one direction, and others in another, the chasms clash in a civilized arena, the stage is set for battle. You can throw out all of your prescripted morals; bible or quran, you can flush the ideal of equity, justice; bull shit, it is war, and the victor, to the spoils! 1 know first harm above it all, I am no law school graduate, I do not discern the meanings of torts, habeas corpuses, I only know that the allure is fascinating. The soldiers of criminal justice do not wear sturdy boots, carry a pistol, rifle, and grenades, yet in truth, either [?] has slain many. Then let us proceed to the ass end of criminal justice, corrections, are such a suitable description? Only problem is who really needs to be corrected the most? It is only right that a prison has a keeper of the keys, that watches the felons, now please help me out, who shall be the watcher of the keeper of the keys? There is clear distortion in the precepts of the intent of corrections, it is a twisted, tangled managerie. This arena of accumulated offences is the alter mode, the personification of aberrance, the monikers of certain inmates confirm the hyperbolic hell, moose, scar, crazy, thug, cat, snail, the list goes on and on. The sad thing is this, do the owners of those obtuse nicknames realise the self inflicted stigma? It is as if in the unconscious, they agree with their adversary (the law) by the crude titulars; even tattoued on their bodies. I once heard a black psychologist say that part of crimes creator is when the oppressed can not overwhelm their oppressor. So they in kind turn and commit the same acts of domination upon their equal, or some one considered weaker? Is not prison a smaller, more blunt form of the larger society? We can even take it to a global level, it is still the same, is it not? The Arabic philosopher, and poet Kalil Gibran once said, "she can paint her nails, fix her hair, put on a new dress, but deep down she is the same, a hypocrite". This is the world, for it preaches that in a contained society, law + order must exist to exist. Yet if it extends out into other principalities that contrast in ideology, then we can construe them as a threat to our way of life, even a criminal. As I sit in this four cornered cell, serving a penalty for surpassing the offences I did, I wonder at exactly what is crime, and what is punishment? Is it according to the truth, or is it a sleight of hand, a whim of the ancient dynasties that hand down traps for the disenfranchised? My eyes are failing as I grow older, I go to the opthalmologist, I get glasses, yet can I see? If I am fortunate to be returned to that big yard out there, what number will I wear then, who will be my cellmate? For you see folks until we remove the distortions from our eyes, what will we see, but a wall, a contraption erected by our own views? Peace!
