Pain as justice: reciprocated violence and comfort (Foucault, 127, 136)
Prison is the decision of the state to curtail the desire of the victims. The victims want his head but the law prevents it. The law acts as the moral order of man to suspend his vengeful hatred. An ethical society doesn’t murder evil men it imprisons them. The state protects criminals while the victim suffers awaiting salvation in the next life.
Every life is sacred except the one that was taken. Everyone deserves a second chance. Everyone makes mistakes. No one has the authority to take a life. Not even the state itself all the more so an individual citizen. Those wronged are powerless against the state’s suppressing power. The criminal is another citizen who was led down a broken road. Poverty is a rationale for his horrid actions. Destiny was predicated for him. His fated sealed at birth. He was bound for this life. With repudiation and rehabilitation he can be changed. He deserves that much sympathy. He was a robot deprived of freedom to act otherwise. A murderer on a mission. A man deeply neurotic. No man is evil just a screw loose. It is on the victim to provide a second chance. For the perpetrator to pay for his crime and rehabilitate. To make something better of himself. An error that will be paid in full. Isolated from society for such destructive action. He is not evil just mistaken. A man in need of direction.
Prison will guide him elsewhere. He will be rehabilitated under the state’s watch. Marking him on the sidelines alienated from any positivity. In a backwater hellhole he has little to better himself. He will be provided for on the taxpayer. He messed up but he can change. The disastrous joint will alter his perspective. Time to reflect and decide to do better. The devilish guards demeaning the mistaken are assisting the situation. The guards who treat them like insects are inspiring positive change. A hellhole as a punishment for his crime. He must demonstrate that he has changed. Overcome the obstacle of his treacherous act. The excessive disciplinary persecution is horrifyingly counterproductive. A rehabilitation of coercion torture and displacement. Isolating the criminal to specific guidelines. An extended time-out with more physical punishment without compliance. Babied into submission with little recourse. The time-out is measured by limited hope for hope.
This punishment is destroying the criminal’s soul. Even more than temporary bodily punishment is the literal soul crushing psychological warfare perpetrated by the state. The state honours judgement by employing a corruptible and tragic system. One easily overwhelmed with exploitation. The guards are the enforcers of rules. Yet these rules are discarded for disembodied felons. Giving felons a beating for their status. They are caged animals to be treated as such. If they step out of line they are punished but they may also be punished for just being criminals. A negative aura shines on their heads. Prison is a dangerous place where all the bad guys are locked together. A criminal may receive some ill-treatment from seasoned veterans, from a rival gang or part of new hazing procedure. Locked up is already a deprivation of human mobility. On top of the forced isolation they are enclosed in a facility that is surrounded by angry mean criminals. A hub of correspondence and violence. The destination is not the country club but the boxing ring.
The state takes responsibility by isolation this person and even offers indirect violence as compensation. Yet it is the state that decides this matter. The individual has too much emotion as stake. They are not thinking rationally. Only the law can provide the adequate response. The stable apathetic legal quandary. The mark of order. Yet the law follows the state’s agenda. The state is not innocent of its feelings to the situation. The law has a purpose. To propose order. To ensure logic and reason prevail over heated emotion. No desire for victim regrets or obtuse revenge plots. Stability is necessary. The state is looking out for the family. Her generosity is limitless. She is representative of the people. She is a loving mother looking out for her children. So Cain screwed up and killed Abel. God doesn’t kill Cain he banishes him to wander, reflect and develop. The criminal screwed up, the state in its divine compassion offers a second chance. The humanism, the empathy is off the charts. A true revolutionary reform that values human life in its totality.
Such apologetic responses for the state make her to be a woman of valour. A righteous queen. Yet she may be the devilish queen Jezebel in disguise. The state seeks stability for its own cause not for the sake of the victims. She incarcerates her citizens in epic proportions. Dealing a detonating blow to any contact between victim and perpetrator. The feds have outflanked the local police. The perpetrator is protected by the state against any harm from the victim. The victim is powerless against the treacherous villain. The law must prevail. Yet the law only decides the verdict of the case. Imprisonment is an added bonus punishment that is forced upon the citizenry. The death penalty played the same role aligning due process with fatal consequences. The inhumane violence has been repudiated. What if the accused is innocent? Lies are woven but this doesn’t take away from the genuine cases that have no retaliation and have no rectification. The victim is left to watch the state haul the perpetrator out of sight. Protected from their anger and vengeful spite.
Where is the victim’s say in all of this? How is the victim to cope? Is he to stand by while the perpetrator breathes? Sully the memory of his tragic loss? The humanistic reform seeks to overrun the savagery of old. Humanity is no longer archaic nor barbaric. Humans are civil. If one acts barbarically it isn’t on the victim to respond in kind. That is animalistic. That is unenlightened buffoonery. Humans have transcended their devolved devils. With the intellectual prowess there is no more harm to be done. Be the bigger man and send him off to prison. Prison is the evolved form of punishment. Killing a foetus no big deal killing a murderer big deal. The parasite may be kicking at your tummy but it ain’t ending your loved ones in cold blood. Evolved humanity blames society for the rampage. So it is society that will take the reins. Society will compensate for the loss by punishing him. The victims sit there in terror as the state marshals him off to live freely. The victim stands idly by with his dick in his hands. The state ties his hands behind his back. He is chained by the law. The cuts need not restrain him since the legal consequences are scary enough.
Phobic hysteria refuses the victim to vengefully retaliate. Revenge only leads to lawlessness. It is an inevitable chaotic jungle. Only the Leviathan can act accordingly. Preferring incarceration over the death penalty. Preferring living devils than dead ones. On the off chance one may be innocent but at the core it’s reformed humanity. Encasing the soul away in isolation is the greatest hell the state can ask for but not the victim. Prison is the greatest option for a state that demonstrates control. Capital punishment turns uncool to reformers. Especially with the false imprisonments. She controls the societal order by dividing the innocent from the guilty. The guilty are placed in facilities away from the innocent. Provided nourishment but stolen freedom. Plaguing the emotional with soulful surgery. Stability is necessary, the state is the honest protector. Yet even so, the victim is left helpless. Forced to move on while the perpetrator enjoys his taxes in prison. He breathes and lives off his money. The victim is employing the perpetrator. The murderer continues to haunt the victim. The state has control but the victim does not by any regard. Time is the only imperfect healer.
If the victim was provided the choice that would change the dynamic. There are biases but this isn’t a permitted open season hunt. Trial must precede the execution. A relative may chase a murderer and kill him in his rage. This redeemer must wait for the court to decide its verdict to hunt the perpetrator down. Once the court finds the perpetrator guilty, the avenger may take his revenge in earnest. Violence is consigned with legal stability. This isn't the king nor the state doing the deed. The court carefully fairly deduces the trial. The verdict is capital punishment. His death is not by a random firing squad nor an electric chair. Lethal injection just removes the pain entirely. How ethical to create a paradigm where the monster receives a fraction of the pain that he caused the victim. So much equity present, really have turned over a new leaf. Where are the feminists? The liberals? Really anyone who claims to stand up for a victim. Nowhere to be found since every life is sacred unless it applies to some ethnic standard. The perpetrator deserves the suffering he caused to others and who better to do than the victim himself.
Is the victim out of place for acting in revenge? Should he be prosecuted for a state failure? Clyde killed Darby in cold blood. Was he wrong? Darby killed his wife and daughter. The state then let Darby off to catch a bigger fish. Making a deal with murderers. Ensuring their safety on the streets of the innocent. The victim shocked by such betrayal. Uncertain of their case so his lawyer circumvents and causes the victim more harm. The bastard isn’t even imprisoned. The victim in his anger at the failure of the justice system takes matters into his own hands. He murders those who killed his family. Mr corrupt lawyer comes back and tries to take down this murderer. Clyde turns into a cold calculated murderer by murdering random people to make a point. While his descent into madness may be off-putting and diabolical, his autonomy to rid the devils that roamed the street is sympathetically accepted. On the legal round maybe he shouldn’t even be processed. If incarceration is a time-out then we're all just babies needing parental judgement but if it is to remove the dangers from the street then the victim isn’t a danger since his job is done. He doesn’t need punishment for the sake of learning a lesson. The state failed so he took matters into his own hands.
An avenger is perceived with disgust. Barbarism is the old. Only the state punishes. Yet it doesn’t even punish well. Prisons are problematic and the justice system imploded. Election isn’t necessarily the answer nor is criminalising drugs. The one size fits all theme is dangerous and disastrous. The victim must inflict pain to receive some compensation. If the state takes all the credit it does the victim a disservice. The victim consensually participates in the punishment of the perpetrator. The state is a reflection of the victim but is not the victim. It may be a big brother but not the victim. The big brother can protect the little brother from the bully but the little brother must learn to fight the bully on his own. He must show the bully he means business. The victim must violently respond to the violence done to him. The goal isn’t ignorance but showing dominance. With the help of the state the little brother stands a top and teaches the bully a lesson. Maybe it's lashes maybe it's a few punches. The physical punishment endured must be countered equally with pain reciprocated. Forcing the victim to bottle up his feelings is a deplorable psychological travesty. Violence is only barbarism when unprovoked. Done in reciprocation is self-defence. Barbarism is unsolicited while retaliation is compensation. A way to elevate the victim to salvager.
The state's prison system cages the body for the cornered soul. It steals the holistic body from the victim who is wounded terribly. The victim sits at court brokenhearted as the perpetrator snarls at him as the state hauls him away from the victim’s clutches. A reformed system would rekindle the violent reciprocation suppressed in the name of asymmetric warfare. Permitting the murderer to exit unscathed. Such moralistic elitism strangles the victim and defends the perpetrator. Harming the innocent and benefiting the guilty. Instead, the victim is voluntarily provided a defined outlet to reciprocate. To harm the perpetrator just as he harmed him. To provide the solace to the victim and elevate his dignity he must avenge his loss. He must retaliate for his sanity.
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