Talking to my friend about the denial of parole for a convicted felon in California. The parole board recommends parole, but the governor denied it. Seventeen years in prison.
It got us talking about possible reasons that someone would not be released. My view is that some group has successfully lobbied to portray this person as a dangerous monster. How many real monsters are there in prison as opposed to human beings? What is the difference between a monster and a human? How do you tell? Who decides? I'm inclined to think that it is mostly people. Many of them deserve to be in prison, but how antiquated are our notions of justice that would allow us to value life based only on the behavior of the individual without a sense of our responsibility as a group to teach the correct behaviors?
I'm rambling.
No comments:
Post a Comment