In my last post, I talked about my recent experience in serving as a juror in a criminal case. Another thing I've been thinking a lot about is one of the questions the prosecutor asked during the "voire dire" of the jury panel (when they ask us a bunch of stuff to decide who they want to strike).
She asked something like, "What would be your primary goal in sentencing a person convicted of a criminal offense: isolation/protection of society, deterrence, or rehabilitation?" As we went around answering that question, there were a few whose response was isolation, and a good number said rehabilitation, but the most common response was deterrence. The idea is that a sentence one person receives sends a message to others who might contemplate committing such a crime. As I reflected on the question she asked us, I thought that all of them have some purpose in sentencing. I actually would rank deterrence last. For one thing, I'm not sure a sentence one person receives is going to make a lot of difference for another in restraining his or her behavior. Otherwise nobody would ever commit a crime for which they would receive a death sentence. As the record in the state of Texas demonstrates, we're sentencing people to death right and left, and they seem to keep coming. That's one reason I don't believe in the death penalty (don't get me started on that - I'll save that for another time). In short, I don't think deterrence really works very well. For me protecting society, particularly for a violent person would be a more valid purpose than deterrence. And most importantly a sentence should be appropriate for both the crime someone has committed and the person who has committed it, not somebody else.
But one of the ways she elaborated on her framing of the question, in acknowledging that we might believe all three have some part in it made it clear for me what my response is. She said, "What would you hope to achieve by giving someone a sentence?" I could easily respond, "Rehabilitation." Although I realize that in many cases, rehabilitation might not be very likely or reasonable to expect, I still would hope for that. It would be my goal.
During the closing arguments in the sentencing phase of the trial the prosecutor brought up this question again and talked to us about it. She focused on deterrence, on "sending a message." And then in talking about rehabilitation she said, "This man is beyond rehabiliation, rehabilitation is not possible in his case." As we were deliberating in the jury room regarding the defendant's sentence, I said, "Even though it may not be likely in this case, I don't believe that anyone is beyond rehabilitation. I have based my life and work on the notion that people's lives can be changed."
I fully believe that. Sometimes it's easy for us to become cynical about that notion - not just in criminal cases, but in life in general. You've heard people say it, "People don't change." You may have said it yourself. It's not only an attitude we tend to have about other people, but even about ourselves. Sometimes we feel trapped in our own lives. And the gospel actually tells us that we are trapped; that we can't change...without God. The promise of the gospel is that God is in the business of transforming our lives, setting us free from the life in which we find ourselves trapped. But it does require our turning to God and allowing him to work in us, to transform us, to change us. That's rehabilitation.
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