Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

— Matthew 2:40

 

This is the meal equally set, this the meat for natural hunger,
It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous, I make appointments with all,
I will not have a single person slighted or left away,
The kept-woman, sponger, thief, are hereby invited,
The heavy-lipp’d slave is invited, the venerealee is invited;
There shall be no difference between them and the rest.

— Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

 

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“I would love for Harvey to have a restorative justice process in which he could come emotionally to terms with his wrongs. The criminal justice system is a distant second to a more humane kind of process. This is what he has created for himself: prison, lack of remorse, lack of accountability. The man is going to prison for sex crimes.” — Ashley Judd

 

“Harvey Weinstein needed to be held accountable. But sex offenders have a horrible time in jail. It is going to be terrible, state-imposed suffering and torture. I have a hard time feeling happy about that. If accountability can only come through decades in horrific conditions in jail, I don’t love that. Not for anyone.” — Aya Gruber

 

QUOTED IN “ ‘Finally’: Ashley Judd and Other Weinstein Accusers Respond to Verdict; The women, other key figures in the #MeToo movement and legal scholars shared their thoughts with The New York Times.” by Jodi Kantor, Megan Twohey, Grace Ashford, Catrin Einhorn and Ellen Gabler, The New York Times, February 24, 2020

 

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“He was a target of a cause and of a movement,” defense attorney Donna Rotunno.

 

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Harvey Weinstein.

A caged animal.

His life is over.

He won’t offend again.

They wanted to make a symbol of him. They couldn’t wait to celebrate his conviction.

Their post-trial smugness is dispiriting.

Harvey Weinstein was a sexual predator who behaved like a monster. HE is not a monster.

Weinstein is not subhuman and should not be treated as if he were not human.

 

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There is no possibility of a just or good outcome from Weinstein’s trial.

No person is beyond redemption.

No one should be punished more than is necessary.

Punishment is often inflicted for the sake of punishing.

It does no good.

It has nothing to do with rehabilitation or restitution.

In the karmic sense, it makes the world a worse, not a better, place.

 

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I have personal knowledge about a recent court case overseas which involved a sex offender. The criminal offense was far less worse than Harvey Weinstein’s.

A close relative of the offender is a friend of mine. I know this person (the accused one). He is not a bad person. (I say this with conviction, from personal knowledge.)

He was driven by a compulsion to his criminal acts. They were of a coercive and exploitative nature, like Weinstein’s, although not nearly as bad, and they occurred over a much shorter period of time.

The offender could have been imprisoned for several years. He is much younger than Weinstein. The judge sentenced him to an indeterminate term of confinement in a psychiatric facility, where he will be closely supervised, and to a mandated term of therapy for paraphilia. After which an evaluation will be made of the outcome and a decision will be made whether further confinement is necessary.

This is sensible.

In the US, he would probably be looking at ten to twenty years and the lifetime onus of sex offender status.

 

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Warehousing is a horrible aspect of our criminal “justice” system. It shows just how inhumane and bankrupt the system is:

Willie Bosket — imprisoned for almost his entire life, beginning at age nine. Has spent approximately thirty years in solitary confinement. Now in a maximum security facility in New York State.

Bernie Madoff

Larry Nassar

El Chapo

 

— posted by Roger W. Smith

  February 26, 2020