Moral Decline...?

"Monster": Josef Fritzl

On Thursday the 19th of March 2009, Josef Fritzl was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. Unless you've been living on another planet, you'll be aware of the crimes he committed ("kept his daughter in a cellar and fathered her seven children", according to BBC News). So, justice has been served and moralilty has been vindicated, despite this "horrifying" affront to society's sensibilities. Yay for us good citizens: all perverts are disgusting (boo), and we should all pat our backs for sending this man to the hell he deserves - and let's spit at him while we do so.

I've read several reports and spoken to people who are more keen on enjoying this man's conviction, as if the law were some sort of tool for expelling undesireable elements in society, rather than being used to debate our own ideals and on what this thing we call society should be based on. Don't get me wrong, I'm just as pleased as everyone else that this case has been resolved. However, in my review of the film The Reader, I pointed out the comment made by one character about the common misconception of society being based on what is morally right or wrong, instead of what is logically sound or debatable. Earlier in the Fritzl saga, people were horrified by the idea of him being admitted into a psychiatric facility instead of being sent to jail, for fear of him "getting away with it". Now, in what way is being sent to a psychiatric hospital a means of "getting away" with anything? Ask anyone who has had the mispleasure of being sectioned, let alone thrown in a padded cell, and you will soon discover that the experience is hardly a holiday. It isn't a health farm or hotel: patients are routinely examined and pumped full of drugs to keep them docile or in attempts to "cure" them of whatever they suffer, and many are trapped withing their own minds, unable to connect with the real world. Of course Josef Fritzl is mentally ill: he raped his own daughter for twenty odd years. that is not the same as robbing a bank, fraudulent activity, or murder. It is far more chilling because of its irrationality.

However, society is more keen on seeing him placed in prison as punishment, when in actual fact, prisons were originally put in place as a means of rehabilitation. When prisons were introduced, there was a far greater and more terrifying penalty called the death sentence: this was the ultimate punishment. In time the death penalty was abolished in most places, since local and national governments accepted the fact that even the "worst" criminals were capable of achieving redemption. The introduction of asylums and psychiatric facilities for the criminally insane was another development in the search for effective means of rehabilitation, as a way of ensuring the safety of both society and convicted offender. In modern times, though, prison has taken the place of the death penalty in our concept of punishment. "Lock them up and throw away the key" has become our way of protecting ourselves, while those convicted are "left to rot in jail".

In the summer of 2008, my friend Chris directed a devised play dealing with these issues. Chris was also my housemate at the time, and we often spoke about the project while he was researching the topic of crime and punishment. There isn't enough time or space in this blog for me to highlight the amount of problems in the current running of Her Majesty's Prison Service, and I imagine that similarities abound in most western countries. The point is that prisons are horribly overcrowded, several inmates should actually be in psychiatric facilities, and almost all are constantly mistreated since they are no longer human.

Josef Fritzl is not going to survive his prison experience, and goodness only knows what kind of treatment he'll be subjected to by guards and fellow inmates alike. Does he deserve that treatment, even though he did a terrible thing? I think not, but I'll leave the debate open...