i've had a few interesting conversations with someone recently; i've sent that person my entry on this website where i mention the idea of outlaws, and advocate for killing confirmed pedophiles and rapists - specifically, carried out by the victims, not by agents of the state. i have said, as quoted:
"death penalty is questionable because of giving the state monopoly on killing, and all the risks it poses due to it; letting them live is allowing further destructive activity and also wasting resources that could be invested into something else; then resocialisation and rehabilitation is typically impossible, but even had it been possible it would go with pressure on the victim to forgive them now that they're a "good citizen", keep on sharing the community with them, and risk running into them on their ways. it would put the responsibility for avoiding the rapist on the victim to avoid further harm - the victim would have to watch out, observe, take measures to avoid them, and live with paranoia. it goes with lasting, prolonged damage that would uphold years after the rape itself (...) i believe it would have healing properties; as much as we try to pretend revenge doesn't heal grudges, it typically does (...) it would be an act of catharsis, it goes with the safety of knowing they're gone forever and enables healing"
the person, who bases their beliefs overwhelmingly on evidence based studies and data - very positive thing, i have an amount of respect for people who acknowledge research - disagreed with me, as they are positive on the idea of rehabilitation or resocialisation, and believe it "works" while the costs aren't too high. that made me think a bit; i am planning on showing them this entry to share what reflections our conversation has brought me to, but i do not mean it as a continuation of discussion or argument against them, particularly as it's too easy to "epic own" someone on your own platform where they can't defend their opinion. that would be pathetic of me. i treat our discussion moreso as a prompt that brought me here.
generally, it's been a while since i've looked into data that states it works or not, especially regarding pedophiles and rapists, et cetera. it's been a while since i used to advocate for this idea myself in the past. i know it certainly works for most people who commit crime - thiefs, gangsters, drug dealers, that kind of thing, and arguably most murderers, since majority of murderers aren't serial killers who do it for the sake of fun - this is something i'll further elaborate on. i don't know and would have to check on how well it works for pedophilic molesters, rapists and that kind. honestly, i do not and will not question that it works, anyways, if i were to do so i would've done my homework. it's kinda irrelevant to what i'm attempting to express here.
the main problem i do have is with what resocialisation or rehabilitation is. its nature, or the concept behind it, the goals, and so on. what does "it works" refer to? typically, to not re-offending, keeping a "clean record" after the crime that was followed by resocialisation. this is a comfortable criterion to use; allows to measure the efficiency pretty well in clear statistics, it either happened or not, if it happened, it happened once or multiple times and after a defined period since the last crime. numbers easy to operate on and verify.
what does resocialisation aim to achieve - both on the surface and deeper level? well, essentially:
worth mentioning law is at least somewhat arbitrary, affected by the local culture with its prejudices and morality, and it's perceived as an arbitrary value held by the state - in the capitalist mentality, the state has monopoly on setting and enforcing rules, and these state-mandated rules are the known as the law. although the lawmaking process can be quite complex - and often is - the base idea is that law is a set of regulations issued by the contemporary state, typically with its own good in mind above anything else - it secures the state's interests; so a lot of its aspects prioritise the interest of the state over the interest of the individual. if the goal is to plant the mentality of abiding the law, it especially concerns these sentenced for financial crimes and akin where they didn't hurt a human directly, but rather went against the interest of an institution such as the state or a corporation, which is framed as going against the interest of every individual subject to the state, equating their interest with the interest of the state, or going against the interest of all employees of a corporation. in reality, there's hardly a genuine collective interest - usually, the individuals in majority either aren't meaningfully affected on the level of their lives, or are affected only because of capitalism and its means of transferring wealth, i.e. employees who suffer from cuts while the CEO doesn't allow his own gain to decrease.
outside of the financial sector the law has, too, a lot to do with the concept of "public good", understood as interst of the state, and it's affected by bigotries and biases. i'm not saying break the law for the sake of it, but i'm saying a lot of things considered immoral aren't illegal, and a lot of illegal things aren't considered immoral or fall into the gray area. it's impossible to separate the concept of obeying the law as a value from the concept of the state and its interest and other capitalist structures.
i'm not sure if i'm a communist myself; after a few years of apolitical approach due to exhaustion with politics - i called myself an "apolitical nietzschean", immense red flag! - i've accepted the idea of revolution and i am now looking into communist theory. being a non-russian slav, i loathed the ussr all my life, and i've associated the concept of communism with it and other """real socialist""" state constructs, which resulted in being prejudiced. fortunately, seems like actual communism rejects the idea of state. anyways - in our evolutionary history humans lived in smaller communities, which is why our abilities of recognizing faces and maintaining connections are limited in numbers (though there's also individual variation). we haven't evolved for living in big societies - it's pretty much an invention of last 10 000 years, so we haven't had time to biologically prepare for it. big structures of power of thousands and millions of people are kind of experimental in history of humankind, and as the modern state originated on the ground of feudalism and historically states in general would originate for the purpose of a privileged elite exploiting the labour of the rest one way or another, i think it's not going too far to say that states aren't something the average person inherently needs, and maybe are something we'd be better off without; and the law as a concept can't be separated from these structures of power and the purpose of securing their interest. the privileged classes have always made the laws, and they made them with the intention of maintaining their privilege and maintaining the exploitation of the common citizen. the conclusion i'm aiming for it: the concept of obeying the law as a value is capitalist in nature, impossible to separate from the state as a construct and pro-state ideas such as the public good equated with the interest of the state, et cetera.
thus in one part "resocialising" is about putting whatever the person did in that context or framework of the law, the state and the common interest, and enforcing in their head that by deviating they have done something inherently wrong and immoral, and the goal is that they do not do it again.
as for people who resort to violence, theft and other illegal actions because of poverty, whose possibilities of securing a decent living within the frame of legality are much thinner, who are discriminated by the structures and prejudices and who - by lack of chances - were pushed on the "margin" of the structure of the law and state, "resocialisation" tends to be done in majority by giving them an education and a job, and decent conditions for existence - also tying them down with connections that would be endangered by return to old lifestyle. the actual problem here is poverty, bigotry, lack of treatment of mental illnesses, child neglect; the same structures push them on the outskirts, and then punish them for crime. in terms of these, i do imagine "resocialisation" will be successful; most people appreciate a chance to live a better life. regardless, though, the whole idea of "resocialisation" here is strongly based on the concept of two separate societies or states of existence - the margin and "good" people who stay within the frames of the law, these who exist "properly" within the state and "bad" people who don't, even if it's not their fault; the goal here is transferring or transforming an individual between these societies. this is an artificial division, and the whole idea cannot function without the assumption that an individual "fell out of" structure by breaking the rules and needs to be "brought back" by existing within the frames the state precise and if possible, also adapting the mentality of common good identified with the state.
after approaching the law critically and rejecting obeying the law as an inherent value as well as questioning the divide between "the margin" or "criminals" and "normal, law-abiding people", the whole idea of resocialisation is collapsing. it can't exist without these notions. it cannot exist without the assumption that "criminals" are people of some different nature that requires change, that there's some inherent difference between them and the rest of people which makes them capable of crime. any data and research, however objective, will be interpreted in this context.
in reality, most people are probably capable of crime given the "right" circumstances - opportunity, lack of consequences, desperation or otherwise - this capability will also vary for different actions, some may be more potentially capable of theft and some of beating someone up, et cetera. it's not possible to measure potential capability; psychology does indicate, however, that a lot of people who committed a crime don't have a personality disorder that would make it more likely (even then, the relation between these disorders and crime is often questionable because people who have them but have no criminal record due to having no need or no opportunity et cetera to break the law or just not being caught often go undiagnosed, and the disorders themselves are catch-alls for patterns of symptoms, therefore constructed for convenience in a way), or any other inherent trait that would make them a criminal, most of them do not commit crime for fun, they simply had personal reasons to do something and these reasons wildly vary. it goes from desperation through being a grooming victim through personal affects and copes to simple human "flaws" such as greed, most of the time. they do not exist in some states the average person doesn't exist in. of course, it may be worth it to help them understand how they harmed someone - if they actually did harm someone - and make them fix it and take steps to prevent it happening again. preferably, want to take these steps rather than take them out of obligation, though intention doesn't matter that much. there's a desperate need for more individual approach to actions, though; someone who stabbed their neighbour in rage probably needs to be taught how to control anger and cope with emotions rather than how to be an ideologised good law-abiding citizen. if we reject the idea of imposing the one right morality onto people, a lot of it would be down to coming to agreement within the community that would prevent the action repeating, and to handling the individual person and their action in context. a lot of illegal actions are also in practice victimless and ethical problems or capitalism problems more than anything else, and in this case "resocialising" whoever from them is just pushing one right mentality onto them.
perhaps i'm only saying that because an attempt making me feel remorse for whatever would likely fail; there's a few things wrong with me. nevertheless, though, my conclusion is that the whole concept of "resocialistion" or "rehabilitation" needs serious criticism, deconstruction, and probably replacement with more individual and community based concepts of understanding and managing harm, which i imagine would happen if we returned to living in smaller, local communities. the idea of "resocialising criminals" and the category of "criminal" both would then be redundant; crime is by definition an action against the state, something forbidden from above, so it would not last after deconstruction of the state, and would be replaced with the notion of conflict and harm between individuals, and hopefully pragmatic methods of resolving conflicts.
back to the rapists and pedophiles, anyways - is it possible to make them understand that they caused harm and care about it? probably depends on the individual. maybe for some it is. maybe some wouldn't do it again. however, unlike crimes such as theft which can happen due to a tempting opportunity or impulsive crimes of affect provoked by a specific situation, things such as rape and csa may only result from long-term urges. the person will be at risk of doing it again as long as the urges last, and there's few effective methods of treating paraphilias that lead to it. call it a bias, but i feel i don't trust them a lot when it comes to self control and keeping themselves in check if they already offended once, given consequences of committing something like csa are horrible - ostracism, prison, lynches, being abandoned by loved ones, being tortured and raped in prison - if they risked it all to satisfy the urge once, then the urges may be unusually strong or their will unsually weak. while there's probably a varied area for improvement, the trust credit they deserve it debatable, even if they undergo some kind of treatment - in current conditions usually therapy. most importantly also, even if i could fully trust them, there would remain the problem i mentioned in the earlier essay. "had it been possible it would go with pressure on the victim to forgive them now that they're a "good citizen", keep on sharing the community with them, and risk running into them on their ways. it would put the responsibility for avoiding the rapist on the victim to avoid further harm - the victim would have to watch out, observe, take measures to avoid them, and live with paranoia. it goes with lasting, prolonged damage that would uphold years after the rape itself (...)". rape and csa victims deserve - according to me, at least - to live in a world safe without running the risk of walking into their abuser who is now "resocialised". that's my personal opinion, though.
certainly terms such as "lynch" or "vendetta", which condemn certain actions due to enforcing justice outside of agenda of the state, will also need to be deconstructed, redefined. it's not that i'm a fan of angry crowds attacking someone based on accusations with no actual investigation, but after removing the state from the equation there would be a wider variety of how communities manage themselves in terms of "justice", and who executes it, that today's terms like that would probably become obsolete.
i've asked a close friend who is a left communist (ultraleft), why do some communists i meet online - i'm not referring to the person i had the aformenetioned discussion with now, who is to my knowledge uncertain of their identification as a communist, but i did see a lot of examples of self declared, loud and proud communists - push ideas of "resocialisation programs" and akin when prison abolition is brought up. he said they may still have capitalist reasoning or that they they believe communism = kindness.
regarding the last point here, i would never want to live in a world based on pure kindness. kindness is nice, makes people feel good and get along better, but it also works like a medicine or a spice - too much is too much and gets suffocating. certain expressions of kindness are infantilising. there's kindness that takes away from one's autonomy, there's unwanted kindness, "manipulative" kindness, it's contextual like anything else. i personally believe real love - one that nurtures the other and helps them develop into their best self - can't be based on pure kindness; a lot of kindness, sure, but there must be elements of antagonism, elements of challenge, elements of "tough love". it's for no reason the same concerns raising children. perhaps i feel this way because for myself conflict is an important force in improving the world that i would channel better but would definitely not get rid of, but nevertheless i do feel that way and i would not want to live in a world where instead of being motivated, encouraged, challenged and nurtured people are only placated and made to feel good; then kindness acts as a narcotic that puts them to sleep.
anyway, that was me on this.