Crime And It's Punishment

". . . It's easy enough to understand.  Some bastard steals the public's money.  The public has a right to know about it."  John Cotton, reporter and character in The Fly On The Wall.  Author, Tony Hillerman.  Harper Fiction, 1971.


I'd just finished reading this book and using another quote in my political blog  --  at louhough.BlogSpot.com.  Then, on television news last night we witnessed a former mayor of New Orleans being escorted from court after sentencing for taking bribes in office.  He claims to be innocent.  That may be true, but there must have been some overwhelming circumstances to make him suspect.


The issue in the above-mentioned book was what exactly are the responsibilities and moral requirements of a reporter who stumbles on any kind of fraud or graft when doing his work?  Does he consider the families and the individuals involved in the crime?  Or, in the case of a public servant wasting tax payer money, does he report the crime for the taxpayer?  This rather simplistic analysis of the theme of the book makes it a "no brainer". 


The reporter's duty is to report the crime and protect the public -- not to protect the criminal.  But does that duty change if unrelated innocent people may be caught in the crossfire?  What if a whole country can be hurt?  Where does the duty belong then?  More difficult, isn't it?


For the criminal to ask for mercy for his family after the fact is not reasonable.  They were his responsibility and his duty to protect.  He should have thought of them before the crime.  And God help them after the fact.  He, himself, deserves no consideration.  Most would contend that if he did the crime, he deserves the time.


Innocent victims who are caught in the crossfire because they were associated with the criminal, though they had no knowledge of the crime, are a harder problem.  Some politician's job or future or reputation should suffer because he held an office several levels higher than the criminal?  I don't think that should happen, do you?  It is the responsibility of the criminal's immediate supervisors to pay attention to his department and detect and report the crime.


But the greatest problem of all is, as in the case of politics, when a whole country loses a good leader just through guilt by association.  That makes a whole country that gets cheated twice --  once by the criminal committing the crime and again because an innocent bystander loses his political career for nothing. 


John Cotton was right when he said the public has a right to know when a bastard steals it's money.  But he also was right to question if facts and truth are the only issues involved.


Certainly, crime and it's punishment need a lot of thoughtful reflection.  And keep in mind, the criminal needs to pay for it some way.  But the criminals are not the only people hurt by crime.  And we need to give special consideration to individuals caught in the criminal's path to self destruction.  How would we want to be treated ourselves if we were victims of circumstance?  Think about it!