Ddedicated to Amanda, because she inspired me to rethink the problem of crime – and especially cyber crime – critically.
When I was awarded my PhD in December 2018, I was convinced that rehabilitation is not only possible in the South African correctional landscape, but that stigma against ex-offenders is a major stumbling block that prohibits sustainable reintegration and possible rehabilitation.
Since then, more recent data has convinced me that the idea of meaningful rehabilitation in South Africa is futile, and that persisting in this outdated way of thinking is an obstacle to making further progress, assuming that progress is still possible. . By rehabilitation, of course, I mean not committing further crimes.
Horror is the idea that rehabilitation can be excessive, the German philosopher Martin Heidegger’s idea of ”radical thrownness” our historicity shows that we must face this reality to find a real solution, assuming that there is.
For years, criminologists have known that rehabilitation in this country has been severely compromised. Reasons include the existence of the prison industrial complex (PIC) and the stigmatizing culture of shame in South Africa. PIC is the idea that ex-offenders can be recycled for profit – well exemplified by the Bosasa / DCS tendering and service provider scandal – rather than being reintegrated into the community to prevent further crime. Therefore, it is recommended,
This racket [the presence in this country of the PIC] significantly skews the description of crime patterns and statistics from the perspective of the so-called “objective” crime, because it has shown that the confluence of several different forces other than the commission of crime. as each (such as the presence of PIC) may cause people to go to jail.
Add to this the notion that South Africa has one of the harshest prison stigmatizing shaming culture (perhaps on par with the US), and we have the makings of a perfect storm about an avalanche of crime. When all cultures use shame to manage crime, stigma, unlike reintegrative shaming, drives ex-offenders away from the idea of reintegration into the hands of accepting the criminal subculture. John Braithwaite, a well-known Australian comparative criminologist, describes the stigmatizing model of shame in his book. Crime, Shame and Reintegration (1989) as “criminogenic and counter-productive.” Stigma, says Braithwaite, is “cold and punishing” while reintegrative shame is “warm but firm.”
In his readable book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness (2012), Michelle Alexander explores the idea of stigma as embedded in confinement as our (unnecessarily) dominant punishment regime.
The disturbing phenomenon of those who enter and exit prison, trapped by second-class status, has been described by Loic Wacquant as “a closed circuit of perpetual marginality.” Hundreds of thousands of people are released from prison every year, only to find themselves locked out of society and the mainstream economy. Most end up going back to prison, sometimes for the rest of their lives. Others are released again, only to find themselves in the same situation as before, unable to overcome the stigma of the prison label and permanent pariah status.
Stigma and PIC, as Alexander’s quote shows, work together to denigrate the idea of rehabilitation. These features that obscure the debate on meaningful rehabilitation in South Africa, reflect the phenomenon that the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, Heidegger’s contemporary, although in another context, called “systematically distorted communication.”
Despite the two major obstacles to achieving ideal rehabilitation – PIC and the stigmatizing culture of shaming – most criminologists in South Africa still have ideas about rehabilitation that is feasible or sustainable, if only in principle.
I will describe the three events that led to my conversion from the belief that rehabilitation was possible to my new excessive line of thought, before sketching the philosophical implications of this paradigm shift – because it is.
Firstly, as South Africa is a post-conflict society, it is important to consider the value of a human needs approach within the context of a conflict management perspective. John Burton, arguably one of the giants in the field of conflict resolution or management, asserts that the use of force, i.e. stigma, is not an effective source of control. He recommended that [d]eterrence does not prevent sane behavior, and the political frame of power is unrealistic because there is no account of the relevant human factors: here ontological, innate human needs that cannot be suppressed, (the need for identity and recognition based on relatedness), which makes deterrence sometimes not relevant at all levels of society.
By marginalizing ex-violations economically and socially, as a culture of shaming and stigmatizing, they are denied the basic satisfaction of human needs, which is the main source of matter / anger, and ultimately bound for conflict (read: re-offending or recidivism). ).
Second, recidivism or re-offending is clearly rampant in South African correctional institutions. Although there are no exact figures, there are indications that nine out of every 10 ex-offenders return to a life of crime. With a recidivism rate of up to 90%, South Africa certainly has one of the highest reoffending rates in the world. Stigma, PIC and the elimination of basic human needs have contributed to this unfortunate situation.
Finally, Pat Carlen, former editor-in-chief of the British Journal of Criminology, argue that in a society where ex-offenders have nothing to rehabilitate for, the idea of rehabilitation is nothing if not an “imaginary penalty”. The situation is compounded, no doubt, by stigma, marginalization, PIC and the indefinable human need for satisfaction.
This is because”[t]The majority of criminal prisoners around the world, before their incarceration, are usually economically and/or socially disadvantaged who have nothing to rehabilitate. They returned to their place in society, but from a place of no profit, they repeatedly returned to prison.
Without political incentives for fundamental economic change, the situation worsens, for example, by increasing and increasing the level of inequality, the fortunes and possibilities for rehabilitation in South Africa will not and cannot be changed.
Indeed, as Burton suggests: “The only option, politically realistically, is to solve the social and behavioral problems that cause certain conflicts, and not just try to prevent them or solve them by force.”
Then, what are the implications of the redundancy of the ideal of rehabilitation in South Africa, a country already inundated with crime and re-offending? In my view, we are in the midst of a paradigm shift.
According to Thomas Kuhn, perhaps the most influential philosopher of science in the 20th century, a paradigm shift occurs when the main ideas that constitute the paradigm – the problem of rehabilitation, for example – oppose many anomalies (PIC, stigma, the infeasibility of rehabilitation in general, etc. ) until the paradigm becomes untenable. At this point, it is rejected and replaced by another, certainly unknown to the new paradigm.
At The Structure of the Scientific Revolution (1970), Kuhn developed the argument that paradigms often overlap and that is why scholars attach old central ideas (rehabilitation) to ideas that cannot be understood by new thinking.
In my mind, this new paradigm in criminology is almost certainly a reflective, philosophical dimension that embraces the critical edge, as opposed to the empirical-desired activities of mainstream criminologists in an effort to improve and/or help the agenda that the government insists on rehabilitative. programming.
Criminologists who are critical of the so-called “correctional” criminology call for criminology to re-evaluate its values as well as its commitment to play and justice.
Critical criminology includes many disciplines that examine government collusion with big business, such as green criminology (which criticizes government involvement in environmental crimes and global warming), peace criminology (looking for peaceful ways to resolve conflicts), abolitionist criminology, feminist criminology. (which examines the contradictions underlying crime control under conditions of patriarchal oppression), and critical racial criminology.
In addition, Pat Carlen argues that “critical criminology must try not only to think about unthinkable crimes, but also to talk about the unknowable, and the known”.
Indeed, in the perceptive words of Eugene McLaughlin, professor of criminology based at the School of Policy and Global Affairs at the University of London, mainstream criminologists tend to uncritically legitimize unjustified and illegitimate “criminalization and marginalization practices” of the state. One such marginalization practice is the recycling of ex-offenders for profit (and/or other nefarious purposes[s]) rather than public safety.
If “nothing can be done” in terms of sustainable rehabilitation and reintegration, as the literature on rehabilitation efforts shows evidence of despair, we must ask why and draw clear conclusions. Nothing can be done because criminologists are asking the wrong questions fueled by false assumptions that are being pursued by (an) vested agenda – PIC is a case in point.
A new, philosophically guided, critical paradigm is desperately needed and, in my estimation, already exists. Even if the paradigm of rehabilitation is redundant, fresh, reflective and critical thinking can open important new paths to solving these problems, as Heidegger would be the first to admit.
Dr Casper Lӧtter is a conflict criminologist associated with the North-West University School of Philosophy (Potchefstroom).
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect official policy or position Mail & Guardians.