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I've realized something. Not only is there no "paying your debt" to society by being punished for a crime, it actually works the other way. The more you've been punished, the more people believe they need to punish you further. For example, suppose I tell someone, "Years ago, I robbed someone's house of $1,000 worth of stuff, but never got caught, and now the statute of limitations has run." That's probably about as far as it will go. He won't consider it a big deal. Suppose I tell him, "Years ago, I robbed someone's house of $1,000 worth of stuff. I got caught, and pleaded it down to a misdemeanor and served 10 days in jail." He'll probably now be thinking, "Huh, this guy's kind of a criminal. But not too bad of a criminal." Suppose I tell him, "Years ago, I robbed someone's house of $1,000 worth of stuff. I confessed, they threw the book at me, and I served 3 years in prison." Now he'll be thinking, "Wow, this guy is really a mega-criminal! I better not associate too closely with him. In fact, I'll warn people to watch out for him." The more you're punished, the more people assume you must've deserved to be punished, and therefore they should continue treating you like shit. The more time you've done, the more employers (for instance) will say, "Wow, better not hire this guy." If you get off scot-free, people figure you must've deserved to get off scot-free, and therefore they act like what you did in your past was nothing, even if you admit to it and explain how bad what you did was. (Of course, O.J. Simpson was a notable exception to this rule, but otherwise, it holds true.) We hear war veterans all the time saying, "Yeah, I deliberately dropped napalm on innocent civilians just because I liked to see them scream as their flesh burned, but there was no inquiry" and no one cares. They'll even say, "Hey, don't beat yourself up over it. That was years ago, and you were probably under a lot of stress anyway from being in a combat zone, so your actions were understandable. Just try to be a good person now." So, if you tell people, "All I did was look at some photos 20 years ago, but they've ruined my life" they will assume that you must be a really horrible person and tell you to fuck off. |