It was appropriate that yesterday, as Ted Baillieu was putting the finishing touches on his ministry to be sworn in today, my desk calendar featured a quotation from Winston Churchill: “Nothing is more costly, nothing is more sterile, than vengeance.”
Baillieu would do well to keep it in mind, because the law-and-order policies he has promised to implement, risk tilting the balance of the criminal justice system towards vengeance — including such measures as the abolition of suspended sentences (criticised in Crikey by Greg Barns) and an enhanced role for victim impact statements.
Coincidentally, there is an ongoing lesson in the danger of such policies in the current crisis on the Korean peninsula. Provoked by a North Korean artillery attack last week on the island of Yeonpyeong, the South Korean government is resisting calls for negotiations and seems set on a course of revenge.
The difference in scale is great — war in Korea would be a global nightmare, while Victoria’s sentencing policy only affects Victorians, and not even very many of them — but the principle at stake is the same.
Policy needs to focus on the future, not the past; on preventing trouble to come, not on taking revenge for what has already happened.
In most areas we have no trouble appreciating this. We praise forgiveness as a virtue; we encourage those have have been wronged to try to move on rather than dwelling on the past; we have no trouble recognising the villainy of those historical or literary figures who were obsessed by the desire for revenge. We know that Churchill had the right idea.
But when it comes to public policy, these insights too readily desert us. Demagogues demand that governments should defend national prestige even at the risk of war, instead of trying to defuse tensions and seek lasting solutions. Similarly, sentencing policy is too often driven by the desire to punish criminals independently of whether that will actually reduce crime, pandering to the worst instincts of victims rather than the best.
Of course, deterrence has its place in both spheres. Retaliatory attacks may help prevent future adventurism; increasing sentences may deter other potential offenders. But the justification has to look to the future, not the past.
The “victims’ rights” movement has done good work in reducing the alienation that victims sometimes feel in the criminal justice process and putting more focus on compensation. But it risks distorting that process by diverting it away from the social goal of reducing crime to the private goal of revenge.
This is especially the case with the most serious crimes. While we sympathise with their victims, we have to also realise that nothing the justice system can do will be of much use to them; what they need most is to put the crime behind them and get on with their lives. Pursuit of the offender has to be justified not by their interests, but by the interests of society.
Baillieu needs to keep that in mind as he embarks on the task of law reform. And more importantly, South Korea needs to realise that punishing its northern neighbour is no justification for full-scale war.
Uncharacteristically I think Charles has it wrong here. Is it “revenge” when you punish your dog for pooping on the carpet, or punishing your wayward children for some anti-social act?
Of course the problem is that any action now is way too late. The joint war-games “response” is worse than useless in sending the wrong message to the DPRK. In fact it would be hugely dangerous now if there were to be any further incident with so much US power on site–so perhaps in that sense Charles is correct.
No, SK should have acted instantly by bombing to oblivion those gun batteries on the NK mainland that were responsible. They could have informed both the US and China that they would do this and warn China to inform their client that it was going to be a surgical operation restricted to those sites that unleashed the original aggression. The islands are conveniently 100km west of the SK mainland so geography would help contain it (in fact the same logic is why NK bombed the island in the first place).
Analysts all say that the risk is too great. But, in reality this was a great opportunity. Especially in the light of the Wikileak revelations that the PRC may be amenable to changes as the Kim Jong-Il reign starts to fade. A unmistakable humiliation to both the leader and his chosen successor (whose chubby baby appearance and pampered Swiss education must be an insult to most of the generals and maybe a lot of the populace if they knew) would be helpful.
Dangerous yes, but again, would the generals really follow Kim Jong-Il’s command to unleash the dogs of war (especially nuclear, if in fact they have workable nuclear missiles)? Regardless of the validity of the Wikileak cables, there can be no doubt that the PRC technocrats running China would much prefer to see similar technocrats from the army running NK than a family cult running desperately short of talent and absolutely no intention of improving the lot of their own people.
Michael
Such a pity you have never heard about Stalin and the system of creating criminals to have enough of them to fill prison system with.
Charles Richardson is right. Baillieu should remember that he represents the community, he is part of himself, not a pooping dogs on the carpet.
Your lovely solution about North Korea did not work in Iraq nor in Afghanistan.
Bombing to oblivion is not new. It has been tried before: in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the Sudan and Bagdad.
But I suspect, you do not know much about Stalin. You know even less about China.
Rena, you don’t seem to have read my post. I said SK should have had an immediate retaliatory strike to take out the NK sites that had fired on their island. A surgical but devastating strike. Of which I would hope the SK forces are capable. This is called self-defense, not vengeance.
What next? If NK decides to do it again, to a sparsely populated island (because they are not so crazy as to want war), killing a few or a few dozen? You would sit back and do nothing….again. And then….
Clearly, this moment in time is a rare opportunity for regime change in NK. I may be wrong but I suspect a lot of the army upper echelons must be weary of the Kim dynasty and they must all be aware of the suffering of their country all of which is self-inflicted, unnecessarily by this nutty personality cult. The transition to Kim Jong-il’s second son is looking vulnerable. China too is sick of them, and are seriously worried if the country implodes (not least having a million refugees on the border). If the army could be convinced that a more technocratic leadership (guided by China as a model) then that is a way forward (anyone hoping for an overnight conversion to democracy is dreaming).
I am afraid your oblique references to Stalin and China have passed me by. If there is any basis of comparison with Nagasaki, or Iraq or Afghanistan, that eludes me too.
I’m sorry but why is justice being equated here as vengeance?
The law should provide justice to the perpetrator, the victim and society. It really should be as simple as that. Yet it cannot be argued against that the law far too often adheres to the rights of the individual as perpetrator as opposed to the individual as victim.
I am offended by your assertion that the goal of victims is for revenge as opposed to a greater social benefit.
“This is especially the case with the most serious crimes. While we sympathise with their victims, we have to also realise that nothing the justice system can do will be of much use to them; what they need most is to put the crime behind them and get on with their lives.”
That is arrogance of the highest order, sir, and you may do well to speak to some families who have had children stolen and killed and have worked for greater protections to society re: the public knowledge of known child sex offenders; or any one of the many families who have had loved ones killed by drunk or speeding drivers and have worked for education and reform to associated laws. Or the families who have, on behalf of lost loved ones, campaigned for greater workplace health and safety regulations. Why? Because the law in these situations has been inadequate for the proper protection of society.
As for “looking to the future and not the past”, that really is a ridiculous argument in the context of both international relations and criminal proceedings. As if one can ever be excluded from the other.
Try again please, Charles Richardson.
I think on of the great failings of the Australian Justice System (or at least the way that politicians would like to portray it) is the idea of rehabilitation rather than punishment.
Yes there do need to be concequences for crime, we need to feel safe in the knowledge that when a person breaks the law there are consequences for that action, it should not be possible to negotiate or barter a way around those consequences.
That said I find it confusing as to why there is not a greater public emphasis on rehabilitation and the idea that, no matter what the crime, once a person has served those consequences they are “born again” to be a new person who can be returned to community to live peacefully and even better it.