Justice or Torture?

    A question that has been raised many a time in court settings is whether the accused is guilty or not. There is an old saying, "Innocent until proven guilty," but, do we really follow that? Some people are marked guilty long before they even have the chance to see a court room, and others are assumed innocent when they could be hiding the darkest secret of all. Fear can cause people to judge wrongly, such as the case with Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in the 1950s, as well as hate. Now, how can we go on with life with the knowledge that someone may be wrongly accused? Simple, if it doesn't affect us, it is not our problem. Another thing is that we have become so desensitized as a society that we are entertained by violence, trauma, suffering, tragedy, and death. If you doubt this, just take a gander at what is on TV. What is the content of these shows or movies? Survivor has people literally fighting each other and the environment to survive on an island while cameras film their every move. The Hunger Games has teenagers killing each other. Game of Thrones, Law & Order, House, Flashpoint, to name a few. These are all examples of a desensitized world. 

    In the movie White Bear, Victoria, the main character, wakes up dazed and confused without a single memory of how she got where she is. She sees pictures of a man and a little girl. They must be her husband and daughter for that is the only logical reasoning behind their pictures being there. Victoria leaves the dwelling to go on a search for her family. She is hunted by crazy homicidal figures and filmed by brainless puppets as if she were an adorable puppy out for its first stroll. She fights hard to get to White Bear Radio Tower in order to free the people and return control over themselves back to them only to find that it was all an act to punish her. What had she done wrong? That girl she had assumed was her daughter was actually a child she and her deceased fiancee had abducted. Upon hearing these accusations, I imagine Victoria asking herself questions similar to these. How could this be? How can they torture me for something I have no memory of doing? Not only had they kidnapped her, but Victoria's fiancee had tortured and murdered the child while Victoria filmed the whole thing. Victoria's punishment is to live out the same scenario that she just experienced every day of her sentence. If that is so, why doesn't she remember the other days? The reason for that is that they have wiped her memory clean each day so she will have to relive that torture repeatedly.

    In the end, part of me felt like Victoria deserved her punishment, but the rest of me was appalled. Victoria does not remember assisting in committing the crime. This isn't punishment. This is torture. Imagine if you were randomly being chased by men with guns while performing your daily routine. Now, envision them capturing you and telling you that it's all because you have committed a heinous crime and this was your sentence. How would you handle this? I believe that I would deny it with every fiber of my being for if I could not remember it, there was no way I could be guilty. In crime and punishment, one generally believes that the same person who has committed the crime ought to be the one punished for the crime. If I had lost all recollection of that event, wouldn't that make me a different person and, therefore, make my "punishment" forfeit? So, should not the same apply to Victoria despite the act she had done?