The Origins of Criminality - Part III

"Criminals are born that way" is like saying that people do not change. Of course they do. A criminal cuts lose from a life of crime to become police. Proving how far they can go.

The violent forces society sanctions as somehow "necessary" - the opposing armies of warriors facing one another over deserts - competing in the ultimate sport of mopping each other up are commiting very anti social acts. They are being made to perform as "animals" (humans are one of three species I have heard of that go to war with their own species, ants and termites also do that, I understand).

But when a government sanctions their acts of murder they no longer are seen as criminal. In the theatre of war we are presented with a new concept, the war crime. These are acts that go against the code of war.

The war crime compared with the sanctioned killing both may involve death to one's opponent. They both may be performed without specific licence or style. It is the manner and intention it reveals that appears to define the difference.

If the criminal stopped and thought about others when they go through the actions of criminal activity, raises the question of intent.

Like children, people who do not possess that machinery of culture, a guilty conscience, are not bound by the same rules as the rest of us. To hold them accountable for their actions, we are challenged to seek motives. And therein lies a finer switch to judge than result, the horror of which may acts as a deterrent rather than a dictate of the measure of guilt.

We require an explanation to satisfy our desire to exist with some justification for the state that we find outselves. Our progress through life is a model of evolution, some people improve, and some fall to pieces.

Some criminals thank the government for helping them through their difficult lives, providing them home and shelter because other than the easy options of stealing and taking what is not their own, activity that inevitably results in violence from quarters that seek reasons for their violence. The tensions that hold the animal together, hold the feeling in the skin of the difficulty are released only by motives which may be sudden or long felt building desires.

Finally, it is the making of an excuse to the self. It is not facing anger, it is pushing down and holding away from. Crime is an alternative unconstructive path.