Staring at cinder blocks, listening to sounds of heavy doors locking and unlocking, fed meals that just aren't enough for grown men. This is the life of the criminal if he gets caught. I keep hearing those words while playing spades with a hustler, "It's not cheating if you don't get caught." He deals us better hands, "reneges" to win the game. And I know he's doing it, but he's my partner. We wouldn't win if he didn't. Everyone cheats. That makes it even. So, it's only cheating if you get caught.
It reminds me of a line I read in John Martel's Conflicts of Interest. "Isn't it possible that the flapping of destiny's wings in your distant past might have set in motion a nonlinear force that could cause you to do something completely unpredictable at a crucial point in your life, something that could bury you in chaos$%:" And I think about the psychobabble connecting the ability to commit a crime to some traumatic experience in the criminal's childhood. And I think about the opposing stance that it's an excuse for justifying criminal behavior. Both are right. Both have merit. But I see an angle to the psychobabble. The criminal mind is merely a reflection of life and the way things are.
A small town in Western Maryland, Smallton has an infrastructure it can't afford. Schools, roads, public transportation and parks are just part of the resource draining scenario that worsens every year. Yet its citizens face stiff penalties, often jail time, for such offenses as writing bad checks. And the state doesn't even waste time making sure fathers pay child support by garnishing wages, withholding tax refunds and suspending driving privileges. Schools are closing and textbooks are falling apart, but the lodge at Rocky Gap State Park stays sufficiently funded costing taxpayers dearly. This is likened to the guy who makes his car payment but comes up short for child support. I advocate neither the state, the county, nor the dead-beat father. But what's fine for one to do should not be a crime for another.
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It's not just small-town hypocrisy. President Bush reneged on funds to UNFPA to the tune of thirty-four million dollars. A promise to pay is a promise to pay and President Bush failed to do so. In another case years ago, few will forget the scandal involving senators and delegates cashing bad checks in Washington. They weren't sent to jail as I recall. How ironic that legislators push for stiffer penalties on crimes they themselves commit.
And it's OK for the state of Maryland to have a state lottery, but deny to its citizens gambling casinos and slot machines. I'm not necessarily an enthusiast of gambling, but I wouldn't mind playing cards or cashing in a payoff at a "Cherrymaster." The government has been able to fund quite a few things from having a state lottery. That could be a luxury its citizens could enjoy for themselves. Plus, Allegany County in Western Maryland has made it clear by the policies in place that prayer in school is strictly prohibited. But, it won't allow alcohol sales on Sunday. Clearly confusion exists concerning the separation of church and state.
These are just the simple examples. Government espionage and other high crimes are as real as the books written about them. They are hard to prove and just as hard to deny. It's OK for the government to kill of a person or a certain type of people. And if done right, the people won't even know they are a target. It's OK for a government to have a monopoly on the military, gambling or regulating goods. But, God forbid companies like Microsoft falter there. It's OK for government to influence or have an inside track on Wall Street and make a big stink when Martha Stewart seems to have done it also. It's OK for government to mismanage, wrongly appropriate and overspend funds. But, when a company like Enron finds itself caught in the trap of temptation, we never hear the end of it. Getting confused isn't hard, especially when you are facing criminal charges for something your government demonstrates is quite OK.
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These are the reflections of the criminal mind. Dostoyevsky explores the criminal mind in Crime and Punishment. One issue raises concerns of whether or not crime is justified for certain people. Napoleon's actions are used as a primary example. And to follow would be such people as Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, certain judges and certain states attorneys. Often it is seen as doing something wrong for the common good. Crime is crime. Political maneuvers and espionage or the simple belief that one is above the law are no more justifiable than a robbery at a convenience store or a sniper running loose in Virginia.
In a criminal's childhood, he learns conflicting viewpoints that launch him into chaos as an adult. "The police officer who beat my father because he was black got away with it," a fellow inmate states. "The states attorney lied in court and the judge knew it," he emphatically declares. And the "flapping of destiny's wings" echo into adulthood. Crime is OK when you get away with it.
To advocate crime is obviously ridiculous. The criminal knows what he is doing is wrong. He does it to survive. He does it to get along. He does it because society taught him so. Learning often makes us lose hold of previously held notions. Some lessons we learn shake the very foundation of all that we've come to believe. What is wrong$%: What is right$%: What can money and power justify$%: "The poor and huddled masses" will always be wrong no matter how right they are.
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Obviously, the quote concerning "destiny's wings" is a spawned thought of a paper written by Edward Lorenzo called "Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow" in which Lorenzo asks, "Does the flap of a butterfly's wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas$%:" As far as weather is concerned, I have no clue. I can only imagine it to be true. Because if you explore the universal principle at work, you begin to see "destiny's wings" in childhood setting off a tornado in adulthood. You begin to see the images a child might grasp. Images of war, of police brutality. One man stands in front of a tank to stop a war. Police officers beat down a group of college kids. Anyone actually on their way to discovering truth or helping others to see it is assassinated. Lesson learned. There is no absolute wrong or right. There are no absolute lessons to be learned. And spreading out my arms in front of Ground Zero where the North and the South tower fell, the words of my heart sorrowfully declare, "My daughter will inherit all this!"
Deeper and deeper into this chaos we all make our way. No engineer to pull the brakes. No Mother Teresa to tell us we should not go. No John Lennon to sing about some things to imagine. The huddled masses remain silent and take comfort in the ounce of life they have been given, not knowing they could have so much more. Not understanding that what they have can be easily taken away. From Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, "Everything lies in a man's hands, and if he lets it all slip past his nose it's purely out of cowardice." The criminal doesn't let things slip past his nose. But, I don't want a world like that. I want the criminals to quit stealing cars, quit killing store clerks for forty-eight cents, quit raping girls half their age and quit destroying our lives. I want the criminals to go home from Washington, step down from their judge's thrones, take off their police uniforms and quit destroying our lives.
In the measurement of things, there is a great irony often overlooked. It's a childish desire, the childish desire for good. We write our books and articles. We scream at the tops of our lungs. We scream over ourselves. And nothing really changes for good. For every wrong we undo, there are three more in its place. You can fully embrace it or struggle against it. But, either way, you'll always be caught in the reflection of the criminal mind.
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