The Repercussions Of Crime

When a person is directly impacted by a crime, the repercussions and reverberations that it can have on their own life are overwhelming. In many cases, the aftermath of a criminal offense can be more debilitating than the crime itself. The prevailing notion that has existed in society for ages is that locking the offender away is the best way to alleviate the harm caused and achieve justice. On the surface, this seems like an ideal reaction to crime; the wrongdoer is locked away so they are no longer a threat to society, and this is should, in principle, satisfy the victim’s desire for vengeance. In reality, however, this premise neglects so many essential pieces of the puzzle. One of these forgotten pieces, and a very notable one at that,

is the need of both victim and offender to be reintegrated into society, safely and effectively. Reintegration has a far broader definition than most people would initially assume; reintegration is about allowing a stigmatized individual to be accepted and embraced in every facet of life, from their families, to communities, to institutions, to society as a whole. This paper will argue that current reintegrative approaches are highly ineffective, and that more restorative processes are necessary to allow for all parties to reintegrate smoothly into their community following a crime.
It’s easy to understand the direct physical and mental harm that inevitably results from crime, but this is only a portion of the extensive impact a crime can have.

External factors can often contribute significantly to the devastation a victim or offender experiences in the wake of a crime, including one’s relationship with friends, family, and even the surrounding community. From the victim’s point of view, after having their safety and security violated, it becomes very difficult to trust anyone — even their closest support groups. The trauma that results from a crime can, “breach the attachments of family, friendship, love, and community, [and] shatter the construction of the self that is formed and sustained in relation to others” (Herman, p. 51). A person’s meaning in life is substantially based around the loving people they are connected to; when a victim begins closing these doors and shutting these people out in response to a crime, this sense of meaning evaporates and they are left feeling helpless and alone. Healthy reintegration into society following such a distressing event is made extremely difficult given a victim’s inability to trust the relatives and community members around them. In a time when a victimized individual is in the most need of support, they are often the least likely to accept it, given their confusion and loss of trust. Similarly, the reintegration process for offenders following a crime is extremely difficult. In many communities, people

believe that when community well-being is jeopardized by a crime, the only way to preserve the community’s safety and security is to marginalize and dehumanize the offender. Community members also seem to believe that once an offender is imprisoned, their community will automatically become safer with that person off the streets. This is a misconception that can be attributed to community-based fear and dysphoria that results from crime. For an offender, “the embodied experience of reintegration is bound up with notions of stigma” (Moran, p. 567), which cannot be overcome easily. All in all, the difficulty of reintegration back into one’s community is blatantly evident in the case of both victim and offender following a criminal offense; a cultural shift that ushers in better education and understanding on crime is vital in making the transition back into the community safer and more manageable for all parties.
One primary factor that dramatically impedes both victim and offender in their reintegration efforts is the presence of trauma following the crime. It is perfectly understandable and natural for trauma to set in after being violated, or even after inflicting harm on someone else; trauma can be felt by both victim and offender. Trauma, “shapes overall behavior, including patterns of wrongdoing and conflict, as well as processes of recovery, resolution or transformation” (Zehr, p. 25). If it is dealt with appropriately, and an individual experiencing trauma gets the support they need, it can become a valuable part in the restorative healing process. If it is neglected, however, trauma can become overwhelming, all-consuming, and incapacitating. This is where a main issue arises; the justice system’s response to crime, and the response of most external parties, is that imprisoning the offender is the best way to bring the victim closure and allow them to heal. This is a narrow-minded approach that ignores multiple steps in the healing process. If the justice system really wants to achieve justice, as its title would imply, it must prioritize the needs of the victim by asking important questions: “who has been hurt in this situation? What are their needs? What obligations result from these hurts and needs? Whose obligations are they?” (Zehr, p. 27). Addressing these questions is the only way to ensure that a victim of crime can have their needs met. A victim’s restoration after suffering serious trauma can only be made complete if all these needs are met; some of the most prevalent needs of victims who are suffering from trauma are, “empowerment, truth-telling, answering of questions, recovery of losses, reassurance, and a feeling that one is doing something to help change the offender’s behavior” (Presser et al, p. 336). Only when the victim receives these supports will the trauma begin to recede.
In the case of the offender, trauma might be just as pressing as it is in the victim; in fact, the offense they commit may have been influenced by unhealed trauma from their past. According to John Wetzel, a correctional officer at Pennsylvania state prison, “the number of offenders with unresolved trauma experienced early in their lives is really shocking” (McNaughton). These offenders are in desperate need of support, as this suppressed trauma is harmful to themselves and to others. Unfortunately, they rarely get the help they require, especially after committing an offense. Intense trauma makes individuals feel isolated and alone, which makes reintegration that much harder for both victims and offenders. Currently, traumatized individuals seldom receive adequate support, and consequently trauma is often left unhealed.
It is clear that the criminal justice system does nothing to expedite or improve the reintegration process; if anything, it further inhibits this process for both victims and offenders. “The default punishment in the current system is incarceration” (Kleiman, p. 1621), as the justice system believes that imprisoning a person is the best way to teach a convicted criminal their lesson and ensure they never offend again. Unfortunately, this is a highly distorted perception. The prison system introduces prisoners to a culture of hostility and violence. When they are finally released from this environment, the norms they’ve become accustomed to in prison make the transition into regular society extremely difficult. The mental and physical trauma inflicted on an offender within prison is not easily overcome, and it sticks with them long after their release. Additionally, that individual will carry the label of a convicted criminal around wherever they go; it is inscribed on them and inescapable. No community actually feels safer around a past offender knowing that they’ve served a prison sentence; instead, the notion that they spent a long time among hundreds of other hardened criminals makes the offender seem even more intimidating and repugnant. Thus, it is not overly surprising that, “specific examples of prison time being ‘inscribed’ on the body [have been identified], which prove problematic for former prisoners” (Moran, p. 565). Given the experiences an offender brings with them when they leave prison, coupled with society’s unwillingness to forgive them and accept them in, the prison system makes it essentially impossible to adequately reintegrate an offender.
Community involvement is imperative in rehabilitating an offender.

It promotes healthier and more complete reintegration for offenders, and it would also allow the community to feel safer and more connected than ever. There are a number of programs that use a community-based approach either as a replacement to incarceration, or as a follow up. Of course, when a person has committed a crime, it is important to take precautions to ensure that it will not happen again. However, there are much more effective ways to keep communities safe than throwing offenders behind bars, and then releasing them years later even more aggressive than they were when they went in. When the offender is given an opportunity to learn from their mistakes and grow as a person from within the community, the people around them will be more exposed to their human side and thus more inclined to forgive them for their past wrongdoing. Furthermore, offenders that take the community supervision reintegrative route are often more cooperative and obedient, which makes it much easier for the probation officer to, “do some serious supervision and offer some intensive, high-quality treatment and other services” (Kleiman, p. 1627), for these individuals. Preventing Parolee Crime Program, or PPCP, is a program that emphasizes effective reintegration into the community for offenders. They do this by offering education, employment skills, and housing assistance for thousands of parolees every year. These are all

instrumental steps in helping an offender readjust to being a contributing member of society, especially after a lengthy prison sentence. By providing the necessary support for past offenders, not only does the community become more likely to accept them back in, but the offenders themselves become less likely to offend; “PPCP participants, as a whole, had a recidivism rate 8 percentage points lower than non-PPCP parolees” (Zhang et al, p. 562). Offering these types of progressive reintegrative opportunities that genuinely help offenders get back on their feet makes a huge difference in restoring a sense of safety and togetherness in the community.