The International Lutheran-Episcopal Society

PUNISHMENT AND RECONCILIATION

 

By Paul Leer-Salvesen

 

1. Introduction
 

Let me just present my own background: In my youth I served

as a prison chaplain in two Norwegian prisons. Then I worked 

a scholar in theology and researcher in criminology. In this

capacity I completed a research project on

"The Ethics of Punishment" and "The Phenomenon of Guilt".

This work started with a series of interviews among Norwegian

men convicted of homicide. And it continued as a study of the

phenomenon of forgiveness. This is the background for the

thoughts I would like to share with you.

 

2. Guilt
 

My personal interest in these subjects started so to say on the ground level. Several years ago I served as Prison Chaplain in addition to my occupation as a writer in Norway. In the next period of my life, I went into a research project in the fields of criminology and ethics. Over two years I made interviews over the subjects of Guilt with Norwegian men convicted of homicide. I wrote my thesis about the question of guilt and the ethics of punishment and got my doctor degree in the philosophy of Law from the department of Law at the university of Oslo. To sum up my book from 1991 with the title “Man and Punishment” in a few sentences, I will say: the men, who had committed murder, experienced themselves as guilty. They could see humans with a face on the other side of their act. I didn’t find persons telling me they were not guilty, or that the victims or the society were guilty in the crime. They said “Mea Culpa”, to borrow a phrase from the old Christian liturgy. Their thoughts about guilt were different from the language of the law: They had a more existential way of talking about the guilt, saying: When I have finished my prison-sentence, the guilt will still be on my shoulders, as a life-long burden. They didn’t see their punishment as a real atonement, which could release them from guilt.
 

I also interviewed prisoners convicted of crimes other than homicide. Their answers were very different. I interviewed the classical smuggler of alcohol, the thief, and the drug-dealer. They could not see a victim with a face on the other side of the crime. They didn’t experience guilt with a direction towards crime-victims, but they could talk about guilt towards directions: Their own family, girlfriends, perhaps themselves.
        

I sum up: Is the experience of guilt a personal phenomenon, something that occurs between an I and a Thou? It is nearly impossible to experience guilt in relation to an insurance company or a state. It is possible, and even common to feel guilt towards human beings.

 

3.     The murderers about forgiveness

         

The murderers also had something to say about forgiveness, but what they said, were words and thoughts about the absence of forgiveness. Several said: The only person who could have forgiven me is dead. Or: I cannot even forgive myself - how can than other persons forgive me? One said, and this is an important thought for me: “The first time my mother, my mama, visited me in prison after the crime, I felt a little bit forgiven. Can you understand that?”

 

Yes, I can. And I find this important. Is it so that we can in some extreme cases be vicars or represent each other on the field of forgiveness? All relations can not be restored. In some cases the offender and the victim have to search for forgiveness in other or new relations.

 

4.     The experiences of ordinary people

  

The book with the title Forgiveness is based on letters from 100 persons from three Norwegian towns who have written letters to me anonymously, with free associations to the keyword forgiveness. The first group of respondents is children and young adults, the second grown up students, the third victims of sexual abuse, women who were raped or abused in their childhood. This material is so to say my starting-point for a phenomenological analysis of the forgiveness. The methodology is not strictly that of the social sciences, it is more like the way of thinking we meet in the philosophy of language: If you want to analyze one of the ground-phenomenon in human life, you should not start in abstract metaphysics: You should start in daily life, in the experiences of ordinary people: What do people think and mean when they say “forgiveness”? Which conditions do they have if they mean that it is possible to forgive? Is something unforgivable? The hundred letters are my starting-point before a discussion of the forgiveness between offender and victim - offender and victim here understood as names for roles we all can bear, not only on a criminal scene, but also in daily life: All human beings have experiences as offenders and victims.

         

I use the words victim and offender as typologies: In life most people experience being both offender and victim at the same time: In our conflicts, divorces, the small wars in every day life we may be offenders and victims at the same time in our relations. From my research in criminology I can say that I have never met a man who is only an offender – even the murderers were always also victims. But I am sorry to say that I have met pure victims: Children, other completely innocent persons who have become victims of other people’s deeds, victimized people.

 

 

5.     The victims

 

The last group were 13 women who had been raped or sexually abused. This victim-group has written long letters about forgiveness. And what they say can perhaps be divided into two categories: The first group say that they can never forgive the offender. They react with anger when the question occurs:

How could I? He has ruined my life, stolen my childhood. They still hate him too much; the anger, the moral anger, is too big. “He made me creep for him. If I should forgive him, it would be to creep for him again.” The crime has humiliated them, taken their dignity away. The anger gives strength, makes them feel worthy. Therefore is it impossible to forgive. This group sees forgiveness as a gift, which is to be given to the offender - and they say that it is impossible to grant him this gift. It is too much. The victim will not and cannot serve as the savior of the offender. They also tell me that power is important: It is very difficult to forgive when you lay down. It is easier to forgive when you have got your strength back, from an upright position: It is easier when you are the Pope or President Nelson Mandela.

          The other group of victims tells me that it is possible to forgive. Some say they have done it, others that they try to and may be able to in the future. But this group does not see forgiveness as a gift to the offender. They primarily see forgiveness as something, which is important for themselves: “I need to forgive! To put it behind me. To get a new start in my life.” I interpret it like this: This group tend to see forgiveness as a station in the process of grief: Now I have come so far in my own grief that I can forgive.

 

6.     Conclusions on forgiveness

 

Some conclusions: Forgiveness without conditions - forgiveness out of grace only - is very rare in human life, and especially in the life of victims and offenders. Some conditions have to be fulfilled: The first one is that the offender has to confess his sin, take the moral responsibility for what he has done, tell the truth about what happened. It is difficult to forgive a person who is without guilt in his own opinion. The second condition is that something has to happen afterwards - which can build up trust again. He has to repent, maybe also make atonement, and flowers is not enough. I meet the old language of repentance in these letters, and I also meet this language in the interviews with the offenders: The need to do something good after you have done something bad. I have heard this sentence hundreds of times in prisons: “If I could work in stead of only sit here.” The offenders need for activity in stead of passivity. And I find a similar way of thinking among victims: The only possibility to restore a relationship, is that the conditions for forgiveness are fulfilled.

         

The offender and the victim after serious crimes have something in common: The act of violence changed the life of both parties. They are widows. They are in grief and sorrow after a great loss. The time after the violence is a time for grief-work - an Easterparade from death to new life. Forgiveness is an important station on this road. For some it will be impossible to experience forgiveness in the very same relation which has been destroyed: I have not got the courage to ask a 16 year old girl in Kosovo to forgive the three soldiers who raped her. But maybe she can come so far in her process of grief that she can forgive another man, another Serb, as a representative for mankind. And maybe the soldiers can experience a sort of forgiveness in a new lovefilled relation to other women. But in some relations it is meaningful to work for and dream about forgiveness directly in the disturbed relation. But then some conditions have to be fulfilled. I name these conditions atonement and repentance, inspired from the old institutions of confession and repentance in the Jewish and the Christian tradition.

 

7. Revenge

 

Is revenge the law of nature? Maybe revenge is one of the laws of nature, and certainly it is a very powerful law in many societies today, and I am sorry to say: In international politics. Forgiveness and Reconciliation are not very popular themes in the different theaters of war and conflict today. But revenge is not the only possible answer to violence. In my research I find that many victims search for solutions other than revenge.

 

8.  Reconciliation

 

I understand reconciliation as “restoration of a broken relationship”.

Such miracles happen, on the micro-level where I have been working with individual offenders and victims. The miracle of reconciliation may also happen on the macro-level, in neighborhoods, in groups. But I am not ready to formulate “reconciliation” as an end in every conflict-solving project in the world. There is situation where the better choice is that the two parties move on in their life in different directions – seeking reconciliation and forgiveness in relations other than the one which was destroyed.

 

An example: a foreigner, a 40-year-old man, rapes a 14-year-old girl. It is too much to ask this girl to be reconciled with the man. There was no relationship in the beginning, and I am sure the girl will be better off not trying to establish a relationship afterwards. The victim is not responsible for the future of the offender. I will use the language of my Christian church and say: The victim shall not act as the savior of this sinner. He has to seek for reconciliation and salvation in other relations than towards the little girl he raped, and she should also seek restoration and reconciliation in other areas.

 

The question of reconciliation is different when violence, rape and murder occur in families, neighborhoods and townships where people had a relationship before it happened and are bound to live together afterwards.

 

My opinion in this: If the guilt is denied, a real reconciliation is very difficult, may be impossible. True reconciliation requires a certain degree of truth, of honest investigation of what happened. True reconciliation requires that the stories of the different parties are heard and believed. True reconciliation requires that the victims get back their lost dignity.

 

What about the connection between reconciliation and forgiveness?

 

My opinion is this: Forgiveness does not necessarily mean reconciliation. Sometimes we can see that a victim forgives because it is very difficult to move on in hatred and bitterness. The victim forgives because the victim herself needs to become a forgiver. But the result is not a fulfilled reconciliation. Maybe the offender is dead, is out of reach, is a foreigner.

 

But the other way around: A true reconciliation requires a degree of forgiveness.

 

9.       Guilt and Grief.

 

Like the Norwegian criminologist, Nils Christie, I consider it

fruitful to think of guilt and grief together, punishment and

mourning. We must take seriously that the phenomenon of guilt

plays a central role in court. The law is not to be allowed to

resign itself and say that the word "guilt" means something

different in court than in life. As long as the law invites human

beings to attend court with their guilt, the law must also

participate in the dialogue in what can be offered to the guilty

person. This is a central question in the ethics of

punishment.

 

In my opinion, he can be offered grief, a framework for

mourning. I consider that the natural answer to guilt is grief.

Guilt arises when one human being harms another. It occurs in

history just as death occurs. In many cases guilt is just as

irreparable as death. When you have killed a fellow being, the

parallel is obvious. When you have raped, injured, robbed, and

pestered, it is also a question of harm to the victim that cannot

be undone. You cannot buy your way out. You cannot go the

way of modern data technology and press "delete" to

erase it. Guilt is like death by going down in history as something

unchangeable.

 

         

Furthermore I think that what we have learned about the

different aspects and treatment of grief can be used where there is talk of guilt: consider the widow. There is ancient knowledge of human nature behind widow rituals, which have been given a renaissance in modern psychology. The widow daring to stare death straight in the eyes, peers into the coffin and sees it as a fact, comes out best in her grief. Realism in the funeral rites of societies of the past emphasize the same. It is only when you have the courage and power to look death straight in the eyes, that you can free yourself through the process of grief.

 

10.     The truth is important for both parties

 

         

In the parallel I am drawing; the criminal case in court has similarities with the funeral in church. The coffin must be evident. Death must be apparent. Everything that conceals and decorates and evades can contribute to a dangerous repression. Both for the guilty person and the person in grief the truth is important. Lies and counter-explanations are highly dangerous for both.

 

Realism is important in court proceedings following a serious crime. When the police show slides from the scene of crime, in a thorough discussion of the angle of fire, the criminal course of action and destruction - something significant happens. Then no young, weak whippersnapper of a judge is to be called on to allow the perpetrator to leave court to avoid experiencing the vivid scenes. Then a wise judge is required who realises that the perpetrator must stand the scene and in fact, know what he has done.

 

 

11.     The woman in labour

 

One category of pain most certainly belongs to life. It is like the pain from the maternity ward, the pain that carries the message of new life. It hurts. It can be practically unendurable. But on the other hand, nobody calls a woman in labour, ill. She can be ill if complications arise. But she is not. She is in the best of health, who can be more alive than she?

 

The pain of grief is also a part of life. It shouldn't be treated with pills and

isolation, but with fellowship and neighbourliness. It ought to be encountered with the widow's experiences in mind. Life can never be the same again, but ask thousands of widows if life can be complete and full of meaning when grief has once completed its toll. The same can be said for that full of guilt as well. Even the person who has committed the irreparable. He can be free. He can be given a new lease on life. He can regain his place in human fellowship.

 

So in this lesson the phenomena guilt and grief hang closely together. This

coherence can be described in the following way. When the widow is relieved of her grief, there is a transference from death to life. The very same ought to occur for the perpetrator, even if he has done the very worst. We talk about guilt from the belief that it is possible to be released from guilt. If we don't believe so, we should remain silent. If we consider that it is impossible to become free, it would be far better for us to use our resources on security and deterrence only. This is a different universe than where we find guilt, grief and freedom.

 

12. Revenge or Penitence

 

When we read the history of punishment and study different models of conflict solution, we find at least two different tracks. The first track is revenge, the theory and practice of retribution. In this universe the sin or the crime requires an answer of the same kind: Blood for blood. The second track is penitence, the theory and practice of atonement as healing. In the first form of punishment, the offender is passive; he is an object for the evil he deserves to meet because of the crime. In the second form, the offender will always be active; he will be a subject in a process of doing good, an act of restoring.

 

It is astonishing that we seem to find these two different grammars of

punishment side by side in very different cultural contexts. In the Hebrew Bible we find both of them: The teaching of revenge as a necessity, but also warning against revenge and retribution. The philosopher Seneca discuss the different models, and is a strong defender of mercy in stead of retribution. Even today we find the two models side by side in our societies: Good programs for restoring justice in some societies, and at the same time a renewal of the rhetoric of revenge in our wars against terrorism and organized crime.

 

My thesis is the following: Revenge and retribution will never bring

reconciliation. If reconciliation occurs in an environment of revenge, it is not

because of the punishment, but in spite of the punishment. But still I think that some sort of punishment may be a way to reconciliation, but this punishment is a sort of mourning. It is repenting. It is penitence.

Both parties in a conflict needs repenting. The offender is always threatened by  the possibility of being completely identified with what he has done. I heard this terrible possibility in many of my meetings with the murderers: Am I what I have done? Does my work, my crime tell the truth of who I am as a person? Repentance and penitence offer possibilities to show the surroundings and the victim that I am different, I am a good person too. Penitence may lay a distance between the crime and the person. Grief. The Easter-road from death to new life. The victim also needs the penitence: How can I trust him again? Penitence offers a possibility to rebuild trust.

 

In the book “Explorations in Reconciliation”, Joseph Liechty has some wise

reflections in this direction. He says that the Christian tradition is “heavily

weighted towards forgiving rather than repenting”. He is right, and maybe we should add that the Reformation and the following centuries of protestant theology has utterly narrowed the possibilities for a good and creative practice of repenting in our western culture. The gospel of freedom by grace alone, is maybe good theology, but it is a catastrophe for ethics, criminology and victimology. Parties in a conflict need practice, concrete deeds, results. An offender need to deserve the grace coming from the victim-side. Joseph Liechty writes (page 61):

 

“However difficult, forgiving involves dealing with how we

have been wronged, while repenting involves what most of us find more

difficult, dealing with what we have done wrong. Moral maturity requires both. Healing of relationships, that is, reconciliation, whether personal or political, requires both.”

 

Liechty refers to his work in groups in Northern Ireland. And sum up the

dynamics of repenting in five stages: acknowledging a wrong done, accepting responsibility, expressing remorse, changing attitudes and behaviour, and making restitution. Here we have got the alternative to punishment as retribution. Here we have also got the alternative to the naïve and dangerous “impunity”. But what amazes me is that these five stages are nearly exactly the same as the stages in the institution of the confession from the Middle Age Church. And even more: If you study secular models of conflict resolution, you will often find similar paintings of the process. 

 

13. Punishment and theology

 

It is fascinating to experience how many of these grand themes that are explored both in theology and in criminology and the theories of conflict resolution. In all three disciplines we ask whether justice is a condition for reconciliation, and which form of justice: Revenge? Blood? Pain? Or atonement in form of reparation and restoration, concrete of symbolic forms of penitence.

 

Let me take the most difficult examples of all from the theology: As Christians we believe that God reconciled mankind with himself because of Jesus Christ. But what happened? Did God demand a bloody revenge as a condition for the reconciliation? Or is the life and death of Christ to be seen as an act of love, an atonement? You remember that Anselm of Canterbury formulated the alternatives in his Cur Deus Homo: How shall we understand the death of Christ, he ask: “Aut poena, aut satisfactio”, and this alternative is to be translated: Revenge or penitence. Dear friends: We have got the same alternatives today when we talk about possible processes on the way to reconciliation.

 

Theology can be dangerous. Theology can deliver powerful legitimation for

revenge and retribution. But theology can also deliver other options, in Imitatio Christie, really other options than the violent ones. As you know, this topic has

been discussed by many theologians the last years, inspired by the French

scholar Rene Girard. A good example is Denny Weaver and his book

about Nonviolent Atonement.

 

How is a non-violent theology possible? How is a non-violent punishment

possible? My little draft for an answer is to point to one of the tracks in the

history of punishment: Punishment doesn’t need to be violent. It doesn’t have to become revenge or retribution. In the Christian church we have got a long experience with the Sacrament of Penitence. In this doctrine and in this practice, it is possible to find tools which are useful in our modern struggle for reconciliation without a painful punishment.

 

Paul.Leer-Salvesen@uia.no

Professor dr. phil

University of Agder

Servicebox 422

N-4602 Kristiansand

Norway