Question

In the New York Times article, “From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones,” the author describes how an Indiana prisoner who murdered her 4-year-old son 20 years ago became a scholar and was awarded a PhD while still in prison. Following her application to attend further study at Harvard University, she was turned down by Harvard’s administration, citing concerns that they were supporting someone who is a convicted “child murderer.” Elizabeth Hinton, one of the Harvard historians who backed Ms. Jones, called her “one of the strongest candidates in the country last year, period.” The case “throws into relief,” she added, the question of “how much do we really believe in the possibility of human redemption?” Discuss.

Answer 1

The case presented above is one of a strong dilemma of absolute right or wrong. Is it right to segregate a murderer and the academic attributes of Michelle Jones or is it wrong doing so? How much can one redeem and how much redemption is truly accepted? The importance of public opinion is also reflected in this case.

Understanding the notion of "belief in redeemability" from a psychological point of view in understanding punitive attitudes or criminal behaviour shows that If members of the public believe that little or nothing can be done to modify criminality, once it sets in, then it makes perfect sense to support incapacitative practices that would separate individuals who were so determined from the rest of society (Strossner and Green 1990). Likewise, a strong belief in the redeemability of offenders may be one of the best rationales against locking up offenders and “throwing away the key.” Importantly, although strong, the association between belief in redeemability and crime does not suggest a codependence between the two concepts. That is, they are not two sides of the same coin (see Hirschfield and Piquero 2008; Kjelsberg et al. 2007). After all, support for harsh punishment is not logically incompatible with a belief in redemption. Some can hold the belief that those convicted of crimes are redeemable, whereas others are basically unamenable to change or help. Indeed, this bifurcation is consistent with some criminological theory and evidence. For those with a positivist view of crime causation, anxiety over a flourishing crime problem can be an occasion for proclaiming the need for both wider socioeconomic reform and for the expansion of meaningful job training programs to the criminally wayward. Although this is true, sometimes considering the “positivists” might also be strongly punitive in their views, if they hold out little hope for offenders to change once the seeds of criminality were sown by societal forces.

Another point of view that is worth mentioning is that offenders are not bad essentially but they made bad choices for themselves. According to this view crime is a choice, and therefore that desistance is also a choice. The view supports justice and supports retribution.

It can also happen that offenders are pushed into such situations because of external forces like the society the same way they can be pushed out of crime by another external force.

Getting involved in a criminal activity is not black and white. One has to read and identify the different scaffolding layers contributing to the act. However, a heinous crime sometimes cannot be justified. In the above example, Michelle murdered her 4-year-old son. Such crimes can never be seen in a positive light. However, since the gap of the crime is 20 years. It is quite possible that she has undergone full redemption. To truly believe in her redemption, her activities need to be analysed and monitored closely in the last 20 years. I believe that every crime has a cause and most of the times the approach the criminals take in finding a solution to the cause is wrong. Although it must be pointed out that her personality must be taken into account. If a person having an antisocial personality commits heinous crimes then it is highly possible that the person may never reach redemption. a lot of factors depend upon redemption which is situational as well.