The saying, “a leopard never changes its spots” is often applied to those who are deemed untrustworthy. At it’s best the saying is merely a warning to be wary of certain people. At it’s worst, it imprisons people for actions taken at a specific time in their lives – it’s a sentence from which many cannot escape.
I was reflecting this week on the man who lost his job with the Ministry of Social Development for not declaring a conviction gained as a pimply teenager, 21 years beforehand. He’s behaved legally ever since, but apparently that’s not enough for the department of “Social Development.” There’s a certain irony between the name and the action! What caused me most concern was the assistant chief executives claim that the department only employs people of absolute honesty. Does the lack of a criminal record guarantee that? I highly doubt it. What I think she meant to say was, “We only employ people who haven’t yet been caught”.
As I listened to this man’s story of working hard to rebuild his life, I realised that countless thousands of New Zealanders have done the same, yet they live with tags that can often never be removed.
I wrote last week that we live in a socially distanced society. Our general stance is one of mistrust, security and worry. Yet will alarm systems, security cameras, private security guards, more police and longer prison sentences make things any better? I think not.
People who are isolated, socially cut off, marked as criminals for the rest of their lives, or grow up in abusive environments do not reform their lives because governments create tough new statutes, judges impose harsher sentences and more police materialise. They change because there is something better to grasp in life.
I need to say I’m not a tree hugging liberal Christian who thinks all people are as harmless as Paris Hilton’s handbag-dog (I think it’s a dog?). I’m a full believer in robust restraint for the small number of people who have little or no self-control. Yet we desperately need a new way of seeing our future.
Currently we use power to restrain people - bullets, batons, bars and humiliation. But how do we transform people? It’s such a difficult question. But ask yourself this. If you were to be found out - if the secret about yourself was revealed to the world and you finally faced the fact you had to change. What would be the best way for that change to occur? Prison? Public humiliation? Shame? I doubt you’d choose any of these.
Four hundred years before Christ, the philosopher Aristotle taught that every person needs a life guide, a moral exemplar to follow and emulate. He claimed that it was virtue and not rules that formed moral people and led to true happiness.
When we create more prisons, harsher penalties and more shame, are we any less violent than the recipients of these punishments? Why would they want emulate “normal” society?
The Bible claims, “We reap what we sow”. So let’s sow something different.
Digby Wilkinson 2009