In "White Bear", we see a young woman by the name of Victoria Skillane be forced to live through an experience of true mortal terror everyday for what we can see is at least two-three weeks. At the end of everyday, her memory is wiped and she is This is done as a form of "punishment" for the kidnapping, torture, and murder of a six year old girl, the latter two being recorded on a cell phone. This entire scenario raises a few questions.
First, what is the purpose of this process? It is claimed to be punishment. It is used to force to experience what the six year old experienced. For a crime as heinous as that which was committed, this seems almost karmic at first glance. The fact her memory is wiped daily would seem to be a plus since it would allow her to experience that terror every time. However, this doesn't achieve the role of punishment. Punishment is never meant to be indefinite. Punishment to be used to deter a specific action. Punishment is meant to be rehabilitative. Non- rehabilitative punishment is more akin to torture. As a society we claim to believe torture is wrong, so why is the torture of Victoria Skillane so readily accepted? It seems as if we dehumanize people for the crimes they commit.
This brings me to my next point. The United States prison system is a perfect example of non-rehabilitative punishment. Essentially, offenders are given a set amount of time alienated from society with no kind of training or therapy for their reintroduction. They also lose their right to vote and incur a shadow that hampers their ability to find employment. The system prevents the criminal from actually repenting for their crimes. They never learn from the punishment. This makes it torture.
That brings me to my last point. As a society, where do we actually stand in regards to torture? Do we truly condemn it. The honest truth is no. The only instance in which we condemn torture is when the victim is someone we can identify with. If we can find a way to ostracize, differentiate, or separate ourselves from the victim, there's no problem. Torture is fine and dandy. Maybe this is why when we think about serial killers or terrorists, the first word that is associated with them is monster. A monster is nonhuman and therefore can be tortured without moral repercussions.
2 comments:
You raise an interesting point regarding differentiating ourselves from those that we punish. In movies and television, we constantly see terrorists and criminals portrayed as nothing more than thoughtless sadists. What's more, the detective and crime shows that we are so enchanted with only deal with violent crimes (to be fair, catching drug offenders does not make good TV), so we subconsciously assume that so many people in prison are hardened criminals. We seldom think that we could someday be sent to prison, so we believe that what happens to prisoners does not concern us.
I would like to highlight the point in which you said that "punishment is never meant to be indefinite." I completely agree with this. The goal of punishment is for it to be temporary. This way, the criminal has time to not only "pay the cost" and learn from their mistake, but also time to live on without being stuck in the punishment for the rest of their life. Again, leading on to the point of punishment being rehabilitative.
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