David Berkowitz (photo, left), 70, is a born-again Christian.
Some imprisoned Manson Family members are too, but to keep this discussion focused, I’ll talk about Berkowitz.
Berkowitz drove out his demons and embraced the Christian faith 37 years ago. He’s involved in prison ministry and counsels other inmates.
Known as “Son of Sam,” he killed 6 strangers and wounded 7 more people and a dog in a year-long rampage of random shootings.
Captured after an intense manhunt, he’s been behind bars for 47 years, and on paper, eligible for parole since 2002.
The New York parole board again refused to parole him (see story here), which raises this question: Should Berkowitz ever get out of prison?
The U.S. legal system views crimes against persons in a bifurcated way. Injury is personal to the victim, who can sue the perpetrator for monetary damages in civil court. But the crime is against the state, which derives from the English system that offenses are against the King; and victims don’t get to settle on a sentence or decide whether the incarcerated perpetrator is paroled.
The philosophy behind this is that criminal justice isn’t for revenge. In Afghanistan, the Taliban don’t pussyfoot around like we do, and make it about revenge. They let a relative carry out the execution, see story here. But we’re not the Taliban, and I’m not saying we should think like them; we pretend it’s not about revenge.
But, of course it’s revenge. Otherwise, if an evil monster gunned down a half dozen random strangers, you’d let him out as soon as he found Jesus and became a good person, which in Berkowitz’s case happened 37 years ago. If it’s not about revenge, why is he still being kept behind bars? Society wants payback for horrific crimes, but to maintain the charade, we call it “closure.”
There are, to be sure, other rationalizations to use for keeping someone locked up. Can you trust a parole board to really know when someone is no longer dangerous? Wall Street tells us past performance is no guarantee of future performance, but with killers, I’d like to err on the side of playing it safe. We, not the killer, should get the benefit of doubt; and there’s always doubt about something like this.
And why shouldn’t killers be punished for their evil deeds? Even Berkowitz says he deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison (quoted by Wikipedia here).
We’re not supposed to embrace Old Testament “eye for an eye,” because Christianity is all about forgiveness and redemption. But not all Americans are Christians, and shouldn’t those who aren’t Christians be allowed an eye for an eye, or whatever their religion says about it? More to the point, are the Taliban smarter than us, by making it about punishment?
I think the answer is that while a majority of Americans claim to be Christians, even though very few practice it, we’re legally a secular nation, which means our criminal justice system isn’t governed by Christian principles but by practical considerations. So let’s talk about those.
We all know, and Berkowitz does too, that the parole board will grant him freedom. The public would scream at the board and governor(s) who appointed them. This isn’t about rehabilitation, redemption, forgiveness, or punishment. It’s about politics. You don’t get re-elected by paroling someone like Son of Sam, no matter what he is or calls himself now.