Squeaky, Michael, Gary and Me
How much of a debt do we owe to those who have paid their debt to society?
In the 1962 classic, Birdman of Alcatraz, Burt Lancaster plays the role of Robert Stroud, a double murderer who learns to care for tender young birds while in the lonely hole of solitary confinement. The killer goes on to become one or our foremost authorities on ornithological matters, winning over our hearts in the process. By the end we are left wondering why Mr. Stroud couldn’t have been set free to spend his declining years contributing productively to society.
Away from the big screen, our attitude towards those “doing the time for doing the crime” is frequently less sympathetic. Forgiveness is highly situational, and the type of crime in question exerts a massive pull on public morality. Some offenders find themselves being tried endlessly in the courts of both law and public opinion.
Just this past week, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme was released from prison after serving thirty-four years in the big house for pointing a gun at then President Gerald Ford in 1975. As anyone who can still recall the grainy, disturbing footage of Lynette’s interviews will attest, the woman was far more than a few french fries short of a Happy Meal. But because of the high station of her intended victim, debate still rages about whether she should be released at all. Should we monitor her every step? Stage protests outside her apartment? Or should she be left alone to wither away in obscurity?
Had the target of her attention been someone else, how would the drama have played out? Each day in this country a collection of drunken, deluded or lovelorn scofflaws wind up speaking to the proper authorities after waving a weapon about. The majority of these offenders receive a slap on the wrist, probation and possibly some mandatory A.A. meetings.
At the far end of the scale we find the horrid and sordid tale of Gary Fricker, who raped a forty year old mother of two at gunpoint in the back of her van while her children looked on in terror. At the time of this monstrous attack Mr. Fricker was wanted on outstanding arson charges and had previously been arrested twenty times on a variety of counts including prior sexual assaults. How many times can a man like Gary Fricker pay his debt to society before we are allowed to conclude that he’s just going to keep running up his tab?
Somewhere between those extremes we find the case of Michael Vick. Having served a fairly stiff sentence for appalling abuse of animals and seeing his NFL fortune flushed away into a bankruptcy filing, the convicted quarterback was recently signed to a two year, multi-million dollar deal with the Philadelphia Eagles. Enraged animal activists insist that he failed in his duty as a role model for America’s youth. But opponents point out that other footballers return to the field after dealing out far worse damage to the women in their lives. Is Vick’s crime worthy of punishment until he goes to his grave?
Before we conclude that a sinner’s bill is paid in full at the end of their jail term, it is worth noting that we make plenty of exceptions to that rule. The most visible are seen in cases of sex offenders who prey on children. Arguably some of the worst monsters in our society, the violent pedophiles’ debts are far from cleared when they are released from prison. In 22 states, sex offenders are restricted in where they are allowed to live and most of the country requires them to register on public rolls for the rest of their lives. This often leads to their being hunted and hounded out of any community where they attempt to roost.
Civil liberties advocates have argued that such restrictions are unconstitutional, a point upheld by some state courts, and punish the offender beyond the scope our legal system. But I would argue that not all punishment is meted out by judges or juries, and community standards have long played a role in defining what is or is not acceptable behavior.
Whether you consider it to be fair or not, prospective employers are often able to research the criminal record of job applicants and may find that such character defects are suitable grounds to hire somebody else. This does not mean that the offender is being denied any sort of basic right, but that the rest of society has found them wanting in the moral decency department and chooses not to reward them. To take one of the previous examples, there was no legal imperative for the NFL to allow Michael Vick back on the field, but they made a business decision to do so. Had the league refused to allow it, Vick would have had scant grounds to challenge his lack of employment. The fans will be the final referees on that call and will cast their votes with their feet and ticket purchases.
Defenders of the rights of former prisoners have, on occasion, attempted to liken the public outrage against sex offenders in their neighborhood to cross burnings which seek to drive blacks out of predominantly white neighborhoods. This argument has more than a few flaws. Not only do minorities have the law fully on their side in such matters, but they were never asked to make a choice about the color of their skin. Sexual predators made a choice at the time of the commission of their crimes and society surely has the option to hold them accountable for those decisions.
These high profile cases may provide an opportunity for us to dust off and reexamine the “three strikes and you’re out” laws which have come under so much criticism in recent years. There is no question that the misapplication of such legislation has resulted in travesties which tarnish the entire system. When a young person with two prior convictions is found to have two grams of marijuana in their glove compartment and they are packed off to jail for twenty years or more, the judicial machine has clearly run off its tracks. But this shouldn’t be taken as an excuse to throw the baby out with the bath water.
The opportunity for repeated recidivism in the case of some violent crimes clearly runs contrary not only to our body of laws but to the acceptable standards of community conduct and protection. Monsters who repeatedly beat, torture, rape and prey upon the weakest members of society forfeit any claim to a clean slate or a second, third, fifth and tenth chance. Absent the ability to impose capital punishment, throwing away the key should still be a viable and socially acceptable option. And if these inhuman predators must be allowed back on the streets, the community has every right to not only voice their displeasure, but drive them from their midst like the monsters of old. Just be sure to leave the actual pitchforks and torches at home… there’s a camera phone in every pocket these days.
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9 Responses to “Squeaky, Michael, Gary and Me”
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The problem with the *ex offender laws is that people make the very assumption you implied in your piece, that they're all “violent child rapists.” There are a variety of ways to land on a registry.
In regards to employment, a problem surfaces when an employer denies someone an opportunity for redemption. It is all too common that no matter what crime we're discussing, society routinely denies employment to people with criminal records (unless you're rich and famous like Michael Vick). Research shows steady employment and housing reduces recidivism, yet society would rather shun them or whip out the torches and pitchforks. Instability is a critical factor in recidivism, so what does that tell you about the impact of NIMBYism?
You all err in justifying the discrimination of *ex offenders based upon their past. People who hate other groups use the same techniques, many will find the worst example to use then generalize it to everyone in the target group and call it “typical.” So we have a “kidnapping stereotype” which results in a high-profile murder which sparks raw emotions of the people (and usually, a law named after the murdered person). But what we call a stereotypical kidnapping is actually quite rare, according to the NISMART-2, which was done by the NCMEC, ironically the same organization that helped fuel the stereotype to begin with! And in generalizing, we assume all *ex offenders rape/ murder children. But there are many on the registry that never harmed a child and are on the registry for the most asinine things: one teen had consensual relations with another teen, another prosecuted under an antiquated law, drunks who pee in public, a woman who let her teen daughter have sex in her own home, or that guy who grabbed a teen's arm to scold her after she ran directly in front of his moving car. They're all on the list, and routinely discriminated against too.
Punishment should end then the end of sentence date passes. Yet we thirst for revenge. Our laws and beliefs are motivated by this bloodlust. You can justify it in your mind all you want but it does not make discrimination against ex offenders any more right than discriminating against all blacks because some of them may have committed some violent crimes — its a copout. Truth @ http://www.oncefallen.com
How we're handling those who have been convicted and done the punishment is one of our society's biggest blind spots. It's not just the sex offenders, though the rules regarding who goes on The Lists desperately need to be revised.
Once convicted of a felony, an offender is locked out of society (as we think of it) *forever*. There is no end to the punishment in many cases. Employment, in particular, is the biggest problem. As anyone who's ever applied for a job knows, applications include a “have you ever been convicted of a felony” question. A “yes” answer there, generally, send that application (and hope for a job) right into the circular file.
Overall a good article, Jazz. I'd also like to compliment Polimom on her well reasoned comment.
While Jazz is correct that employers refusing to hire ex-prisoners does not represent a violation of their civil rights, it also doesn't do a lot for society. Fallenone is (IMO) absolutely correct when he points out that denying employment increases the chances of recidivism. The more that is done to alienate these people from society the more likely it is that they will continue to do things that are wrong.
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The problem with employing ex-felons is that it is not “society” to whom they are applying. A particular employer may have several applicants for a position and is looking for a good employee, not “an opportunity to grant redemption.” For very good reasons, most employers prefer honest to dishonest employees, self-controlled employees to those who lack impulse control, reliable employees to unreliable ones, non-drug-using employees to druggies. There is no perfect predictor that allows us to screen for those things, but past behavior is a fairly good predictor of future behavior. Not perfect, but pretty good. And when you are hiring for your own business as opposed to “society's” why take an unnecessary extra risk?
People who are not employers have no idea how vulnerable we are to the people we hire. We may have our life savings and our life's work invested in a small business (or even a big business – think the drunk who rammed the Exxon Valdez), and it is all at the mercy of the driver we hire to deliver our goods, or the bookkeeper we hire to pay our bills. A driver who drinks, a bookkeeper who embezzles your money instead of paying the IRS, can ruin everything.
I once “laid off” (so she could collect unemployment – I'm not totally heartless) an assistant who came back from lunch and proudly showed me the umbrella she had “found” on a clothes rack at the store where she was shopping, where some other shopper had left it. What if she “found” a deposit that hadn't been properly entered in my books? I still needed to be able to sleep at night, and if she'd steal a $4 umbrella and think it was something to be proud of, what would she do when the opportunity presented itself to lift $10,000 or $50,000?
I also fired a young woman who became addicted to cocaine as a result of which she lied to me repeatedly about why she wasn't coming in to work on time or at all, or doing tasks that had been assigned to her. I organized an intervention and got her into treatment (again – not totally heatless), but she had lied over and over, and I could no longer trust her, so she had to go.
It isn't about retribution or revenge, it's all about risk. It's easy to argue for non-discrimination in employment on the basis of past felony convictions, when you don't have anything at stake and other people will be taking the risks.
[...] kidnapping, risk of injury to a minor and robbery. He is now serving a 20-year … Squeaky, Michael, Gary and MeAt the far end of the scale we find the horrid and sordid tale of Gary Fricker, who raped a forty [...]