I really enjoyed watching Shakespeare's Behind Bars and found the point of view in which the documentary portrayed the inmates interesting. From reading other ruminations, I found that many of our classmates thought differently about criminals after watching the documentary and had more compassion for their situations. I; however, disagree with this point.
Don't get me wrong...I think it is great that programs like the Shakespeare one occur in prison. I think the inmates should use their time locked up constructively and try to improve themselves or make themselves content. I also think that the inmates probably learn a lot about themselves and about life through programs like the Shakespeare one. Perhaps working through their frustrations through acting may help them with their struggle to forgive themselves for their crimes. I do agree that the inmates should try to find personal forgiveness within themselves because this is the only way that they will be able to become better individuals and try to live in a new way. Everyone deserves personal happiness/contentment/fulfillment, even inmates who have committed terrible crimes. On the other hand, when it comes to society as a whole, I do not think these people should be forgiven and released back into the general public.
In Shakespeare Behind Bars, most of the inmates had committed murder. Many of them killed someone who they were close with or loved. Others raped or sexually assaulted other individuals. I don't care what type of circumstances you grew up in or were exposed to as a child, everyone knows that killing someone or making someone do something against their will is wrong. These are serious crimes and have effected these victims families tremendously. I cannot have compassion for someone who has made someone's family loose someone that they cared about dearly. It is true many of the inmates felt that they were changed men after being in prison. However, even Sammie said that he was worried about how he would act/feel emotionally if he were released. In my opinion, you have to have something mentally unstable or wrong to commit these types of crimes. These people do deserve help from our society; however, they shouldn't be given the chance to effect another person or family in a negative way.
I had the same problem while watching the documentary. I found it really hard to sympathize with most of the inmates and I flat out couldn't sympathize with others.
ReplyDeleteDo these criminals deserve forgiveness? Hell no. These inmates don't deserve anything. Most of them understand that.
The thing is that these people had completely different upbringings that practically nobody can relate to. Sammie for example was raped multiple times as a child and when he tried to confront his parents about it they screamed at him and made it worse. His crime was a very emotional, sudden murder which was essentially a huge release of decades of bottled up rage. Obviously he was in control of his actions, but he was in a position and a state of mind that nobody could possibly understand or relate to. Sammie was actually the one inmate that I could sympathize with most, because he never had a chance at a normal life but somehow he was actually putting himself together during his time in prison.
The sexual predators and rapists on the other hand are just habitual criminals and in my opinion, like yours, they are way more likely to actually commit more crimes upon release, and they're generally the absolute scum of the Earth.
In all honesty, it's impossible to say who deserves release and who doesn't because we could never have the means of truly understanding that. But, I don't think you can really judge every criminal in the same way. Every inmate had different conditions. It's not black and white or good and evil. They're all incredibly complicated situations. Some of them deserve a whole lot less than a 6'x6' cell (I support capital punishment in extreme cases), but society should try and fix broken things before they throw them away forever.
I personally think that some people can successfully be rehabilitated and reintroduced into society. Do they deserve the second chance at life? Not in the least. But should we deny them that chance? That's a much more complex question.
i have to say the i did feel a certain degree of sympathy for the criminals in the Shakespeare Behind Bars program, but far from feeling that they should be completely forgiven for their crimes. i am saying that if i were to meet any of the convicts from the documentary out free on the street i might feel more comfortable addressing them normally than i would a stranger who i knew had been to prison. still i would be stigmatizing them both as criminals and all negative connotation that goes with that title. The documentary for me was a transcendent experience not only for the men performing the play but for the audience watching it. Matter of fact, I do not pity the men selected for the program at all, they are probably the luckiest men in that prison. Shakespeare Behind Bars offers a opportunity for these men to shed their corrupted egos and become part of something of a higher nature for a brief moment. And i think by witnessing that genuine moment of transcendence i did forgive them in a way.
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