I've been thinking about "restorative justice" this evening. I was reading about Louisiana's new "Ten Commandments" law and inevitably, someone posted the Seven Tenets of the Satanic Temple. ti The 6th tenet states:
"People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused."
which is a pretty clear recommendation of something like restorative justice initiatives.
Try as I might, I can't figure a way that I could reasonably rectify it or resolve any harm caused by it. Surely, secret infidelity is not admirable, but there are few modern societies that criminalize it. I sorely wanted to rectify the harm I caused my former partner, but was not allowed the opportunity.
Indeed, my offense itself caused harm to no one. The fallout from my arrest, conviction, incarceration, probation, and registry requirements is what caused the harm. I know that it caused a lot unhappy feelings among my loved ones and my community. Still, most of the harm caused by my conviction is harm that I have suffered.
Perhaps it is appropriate for a guilty party to suffer, but I wonder why it has been necessary that I have suffered so for acting in a way that harmed no one.
Corrections personnel are quick to dismiss that kind of thinking as minimization. That's really just because they don't actually have a good answer for it. I've spoken to other PFRs who have deeply internalized the "therapy speak" of their treatment programs. They will focus on the "but what ifs?" of cases like mine and also accuse me of minimizing. I don't think I'm minimizing what I did or what harm it caused. But, I don't think maximizing it into the worst possible scenario is appropriate either.
I think a reasonable person would likely agree that the penalties for a crime ought to be proportional to the harm it causes. However, sex crimes are considered especially heinous and the public is often completely unaware of what most people on PFR lists actually did.
My arrest and 62 felony charges were all over the local and regional news. I often wonder what people thought I must have done given that truly bombastic number. What did people who knew me think? What did strangers think? What did my former students and their parents think?
Of course, there seems to be no journalistic responsibility to provide updates on criminal cases. There were no follow up reports that indicated that all 62 felonies related to online communication with a single person who was actually an adult. No deep dive into the manipulative tactics that the vigilante team used while needling me for information. There were a few short reports when I pled guilty to only two of the 62 charges against me. The media was happy to put me on public display when it appeared that I might be some kind of serial predator who'd been lurking in the classroom, but declined to give my story any more coverage when it turned out that my case was typical example of the way that DAs trump up extra charges when indicting someone.
At any rate, had I actually harmed someone, I know that I'd have been glad to do everything in my power to make amends. My incarceration and social ostracism have not made anything better for anyone.
