Dog fighting never got so much press as when a star professional quarterback was found to be embroiled up to his diamond-studded ears in it. Some dogs were rescued, some didn't make it. The star lost his reputation, his fortune, and -- for a time -- his freedom.
Our country faces a terrible problem in dog-fighting. But we face another sad and troublesome fact: ex-convicts struggle to find jobs. Regardless of their crime, their sentence, or their remorse (though I suspect not regardless of their race or level of education), for many ex-convicts their release from prison only begins a new ordeal.
This is not the time or the place for an essay on theories of criminal punishment. Frankly, we'd both be bored, dear reader, before I finished the first paragraph. But let's think for a moment about two common-sense ideas behind our criminal justice scheme, such as it is: one idea is that we pay for our crimes, the other idea is that we learn from our mistakes.
Torturing animals, and breeding and training dogs for dog-fighting is nothing less than deliberate torture, merits criminal punishment. It's a crime in every state, I believe, punishable by fines or prison time. So far as I know it is not punishable by a life-time sentence or the death penalty. The aforementioned star was sentenced to nearly two years, and served most of that time.
Now he's out of prison. Due to possessing a rare and highly-prized skill set, he has been offered a job. It's not quite as glorious as his old job, but it's a job as a professional quarterback, and the money is respectable enough to keep his bankruptcy judge happy and (one imagines) his checks to the animal welfare charities substantial. And some people are sputtering.
Where, they ask, is the justice in this man, this brutal killer of dogs, walking back into the life of a sports star? But he served out his prison sentence, meted out by a federal judge who refused him credit for his apology or voluntary surrender; and he has given every indication of having learned his lesson, taking part in high-profile efforts against dog-fighting and publicly expressing his contrition. What more may we, as a society, ask of him or of any other criminal we set free from prison? Sackcloth and ashes went out of style long ago.
We are a harsh country as criminal punishment goes. We keep company with China, North Korea, Iran, and Saudi Arabia in applying the death penalty. We give people no more than three strikes (regardless of how young they were when they first struck, regardless to some degree of how minor the strike) before imposing a life sentence. We try infants as adults, we hold the delusional to the standards of the sane. We pretend its a bloodless system, we know it is not. What then is the difference between sending a young man to prison with a relatively short sentence, and sending a dog into a ring for a brief fight? Neither has a choice once they've entered the arena, neither will be the same after -- can either ever have a chance at a peaceful and happy life?
I understand the visceral reaction, the desire to make someone suffer as much as his victims have and more. But let us strive to be slightly less hypocritical. We set a price and it is paid, though the shame is his forever. This star athlete is the rare one, the lucky one, to get something similar to his old job back. With some prudence and some luck he'll never need to worry about keeping himself and his family clothed, fed, sheltered. He is the rare and lucky prisoner freed to a world with real options for him. When you hear people sputter, when you join in, take a moment to think of how it would be for him if he couldn't get a job, if he were not the rare one, the lucky one, the one with a chance.
All I hope is that his contrition is real, and his lessons are well-learned.
I was an HR Manager at a manufacturing facility for almost 4 years, before deciding to go to law school. Let me tell you - regardless of what stance the company may have - a criminal record, ESPECIALLY with time served? Is a deal breaker.
I did my best to sneak a few in through the temp-to-perm route. All of the criminal activity I observed at my job (white collar, but nonetheless . . . ) was perpetrated by people with no record.
I learned more than I wanted to know there.
Posted by: Gillian | August 14, 2009 at 09:22 PM
Nicely put.
Posted by: Boy | August 16, 2009 at 09:48 PM