A Philosophical Discourse on the Criminal Mind and God in Prison

The prevalent philosophy today in criminology circles is that all crime is pathological, meaning that they who commit crimes aren’t acting upon a free, moral, and rational choice but on impulses beyond their control. This implies that only behavior that is legal is of free choice.

Because all human law is arbitrary and subject to change, rationality is as unstable as gas prices. On some level, at least, both legal and ethical scholars realise such a theory to be untrue. The fact that prisons exist and that people are held morally and legally accountable for their actions is the proof. Of course, they could never publicly admit this. To do so would tip their sacred cow and overturn the entire judicial system.

If, however, crime is pathological then it must be the result of a sickness, for that’s the definition of pathology. Webster’s says it’s “the structural and functional deviations from the normal that constitute disease or characterize a particular disease.”1

With this definition in mind, it’s up to us to determine exactly what kind of disease it is to be classified. It’s reasonable to say that no one has made a serious argument for crime being a physiological pathology. If this is being advocated, then I guess we can assume that people who have been diagnosed with cancer, diabetes, or Alzheimer’s can expect prison sentences.

The idea is absurd. If not physiological, are legal theorists arguing for crime being a psychological disease? While it’s true that some mentally ill people are put in prison, it’s for the commission of a crime, it’s not because they are mentally ill. Crazy is not a crime.

In determining whether an act is criminal, one of the court’s responsibilities is to determine a person’s intent. According to Texas law, intent can be said to be a person’s desire to cause the action that resulted. In other words, if someone was killed, was it the intent to murder them? If something was stolen, did you mean to put it in your pocket or did it somehow get stuck to the bottom of your shoe?

Of course, there are other factors to be considered when it comes to practical law. Is it a first offense? What kind of lawyer did you have? “The law is enforced upon whom [it] can be enforced” (cf. my essay, “What’s Behind The Lockdown In Texas Prisons?” from PW Oct. ’23). If it is not physiological or psychological, then the only option left available to us is spiritual.

Occam’s Razor (aka Principia Parsimoniae) is a form of deductive reasoning that says, “causes should not be multiplied without necessity.” That is to say, after every other explanation has been eliminated, whatever remains must be the truth (to loosely quote Sherlock Holmes).

There are many people willing to trot out a host of justifications to excuse our bad behavior: socioeconomic factors, geographic location, racial prejudice, child abuse, demonic possession, or just because we’re assholes. Our behavior, however, is fundamentally the result of poor choices. As children subject to the authority and decisions of our parents, teachers, religious leaders, and other caretakers, we could get away with claiming non mea culpa. As adults, we no longer have such luxuries. All of us, whether free or in jail, are ultimately responsible for our actions and whatever results from them. Our trials, tribulations, and other experiences — both positive and negative — played a part in molding us into the person we’ve become.

More essential, however, is the perspective through which our experiences are filtered. In other words, if we view them through a veil of anger, bitterness, and resentment, it becomes easy to get tunnel vision, channelling our emotions into the boiling waters of self-righteousness, contempt, apathy, and hate.

On the other hand, if we are patient in our suffering, we learn not only to have compassion for others but empathy. Through our suffering we’re able, with the right perspective, to learn how to forgive not only other people who’re suffering under their own burdens, but ourselves as well.

St. John Climacus (ca. 579-649), a hesychaic monk at the community at Raithu, southwest of the Sinai, writes: “Those who have been humbled by their passions may take courage. For even if they fall into every pit and are trapped in all the snares and suffer all maladies, yet after their restoration to health they become physicians, beacons, lamps, and pilots for all, teaching us the habits of every disease and from their own personal experience able to prevent their neighbors from falling.” 2

If our spiritual sickness is the result of our poor choices (and indirectly, our freedom of choice), then the freedom to be healed of this sickness must be ours as well. Although we no longer have a say in the circumstances of our outward bondage, the conditions under which our inner servitude exists is our choice.

According to the first century Hellenist philosopher, Philo Judaeus (20 B.C-A.D. 50), men and women “who are slaves to opinions utterly under the influence of the outward senses, whose judgment is continually corrupted by those who are brought before its tribunals…hesitate to get rid of that disease of the soul, ignorance [i.e., their passions], by becoming the associates of wise men, from whom they might not only to learn to escape ignorance [i.e., spiritual bondage]….Slavery, then, is of two kinds: slavery of the soul and slavery of the body.” 3

One of the hallmarks of instability is to perform the same action over and over, hoping for different results. No man exists in a vacuum. Each of our lives affects another’s. Violence begets violence, and for every cause there’s an effect, just as for every action there’s a reaction.

“He that shall lead into captivity, shall go into captivity: he that shall kill by the sword must be killed by the sword” (Apocalypse 13.10).

The totality of our lives and experiences must equate to more than merely entertaining fables, nursery rhymes, or word pictures in the storybook of our lives. The experiences we’ve had should be classroom lessons, just as the stories we tell should be for the edification of others coming behind us.

The Persian Sufist poet, Omar Khayyam (ca. 1048-1122), wrote: “What is it but madness to compare yesterday’s sorrows with today’s despairs, or tomorrow’s triumphs? For they but lend the means to quicken our perceptions of whence we came, why, and whither we go. Drink thou of Life’s Ruby Wine, and to those who dare for more to ask within themselves the answer will be found! Drink deep! this is enough!!” 4

This is to say, our past experiences go a long way into molding us into the people we’ve become. Brooding over poor choices and past mistakes, or talking about them in order to convince others of our toughness serves no purpose. We should use our experiences, instead, as a chart guide others over the rocky shoals that we’ve broken apart on.

In Omar Khayyam’s verse, the Ruby Wine of Life symbolizes the Spirit of God. By us partaking of the spiritual fruit of the vine, we ferment in our hearts the fullness of God. To drink deeply is to become inebriated with the Holy Ghost, who is the chief architect of all good works in us.

In Quaker philosophy, the idea of the “penitentiary” was not conceived to be a place of abuse nor to be a human warehouse for the State. It was designed to be a place where the wayward soul could reflect upon life and do penance for his sins. St. Matthew the Evangelist wrote of this, saying: “Do penance: the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (St. Matthew 3.2).

The Latin phrase here is “Paenitentiam agite.” These words signify not only a change of heart (as does the Greek word “metanoeo” meaning repentance), but the amendment of life and correction of past sins through prayer, fasting, good works, and other penitential forms of atonement.

Similarly, we can find in the Upanishads: “The requirements of duty [i.e., atonement] are three. The first is almsgiving [i.e., good works]. The second is austerity [i.e., self-mortification]. The third is life as a student in the house of teacher and the practice of continence [i.e., self-denial]. Together, these three lead one to the realm of the blest.” 5

No act of atonement, however, has any merit without forgiveness. All men are in need of God’s forgiveness. But just as we are in need of it from God, so too are we required to give it to others.

Too many people in prison, however, have the attitude that to forgive is a sign of weakness. Such a spiteful, mean-spirited attitude is the result of entitlement, an overblown image of self-worth, and a false sense of pride. Forgiving someone of a debt owed reveals a person’s strength of character, not their frailties.

It is not even so much about the one who needs forgiveness as it is about the forgiver. We forgive that we may sever the emotional chains binding us to our debtor. St. Isaac Syrianus, the Nestorian bishop of Nineveh (660-680), writes: “Consider the forgiveness of your debtors in these things as a work of righteousness. Then you will see peace exult in your mind from two sides: namely when you are above propriety and justice in your way and you yield to freedom in all things.” 6

Every act of forgiveness begins in humility, the principal virtue from which all others flow. “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (St. Matthew 5.3). The Latin term here is “humilitas.” Its literal meaning is a nearness to the ground. Metaphorically, however, it can refer to a low rank, low birth, low social status, or even a lowness of character as in meekness or humility. Humilitas describes treating others with kindness and consideration.

The Franciscan monk, Fra Jacopone da Todi (1260-1306), writes in a poem: “Humility hurtles pride from her mountain fortress. Envy witnesses that defeat and wounds herself in rage. Then Charity sets her afire and burns her to ashes, while Anger Left to her own devices, kills herself, vanquished by Meekness.” 7

Pride is the exact opposite of humility. In prison, pride is seen as a virtue. This pride, however, is a false pride. It is the chief instigator in the gossip, rumor-mongering, lies, character assassination, and posturing flooding prison culture. This foul spirit is like a vampire, sucking the spiritual blood from our lives. It’s like an aggressive contagion, infecting the spirit whenever coming into contact with it. It’s like a subtle poison, slowly eating away at our peace of mind while simultaneously polluting our hearts with aridity and our desire to serve God with apathy.

My question, then, is: Is this the person we want to be remembered as? The guy who cared about no one but himself? The guy who cared about nothing but his own selfish pleasures? If the answer is yes, then we only need to continue down the current path. It’s easier than change, which takes work and commitment. There is no shortage of sick and suffering people in our immediate vicinities. I’m talking about the spiritually sick and suffering as much as anything else. We are all behind the same walls. We are all forced to endure the same shit. But instead of doing it separately, why wouldn’t we do it together? For us to harm each other, to see each other’s enemies, serves no one but the prison administration.

One thing I’m sure of after having spent the last thirty-one calendar years down here is that men need God in their lives: Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or other. We all need temperance and a moral compass. While it isn’t my aim here to proselytize anyone to one religious tradition over another, it is to encourage all to seek a Power higher than yourselves.

But the road to Truth is your own to walk, my friend. Men and women without God become unmoored, setting adrift upon a sea of perdition. Dionysius the Areopagite, believed to have been the Syrian mystic Stephen bar Sudhaile (fl. ca.510), wrote: “To those who fall away it is the voice calling, ‘Come back!’ and it is the power which raises them up again. It refurbishes and restores the image of God corrupted within them. It is the sacred stability which is there for them when the tide of unholiness is tossing them about. It is safety for those who made a stand.” 8

If we are, therefore, seriously speaking about solutions to the problems affecting America’s prisons, then we need to focus on people’s hearts, minds, and spirits rather than stricter rules.

Historically speaking, prison simply doesn’t work as a deterrent to crime. It hasn’t worked in the past, it isn’t working now, and it can’t reasonably be expected to work in the future. What I have suggested herein may not be the solution some people are looking for. But after all my experiences inside these walls, it’s the only one I have.

But these are our opinions. We welcome yours.