The Wicked Shall Not Go Unpunished. But What If They Do
And Maybe Should… Sometimes.
In November 1326, Hugh le Despenser the younger (royal chamberlain and favorite of King Edward II of England) was brought to trial under the orders of Roger Mortimer, 1st Earl of March, and Queen Consort Isabella. Sewn upon his tunic was Quid gloriaris in malicia qui potens est in iniquitate? ('Why do you glory in malice, you who are mighty in iniquity?')". Psalm 51, Verse 2. (VUL)
The le Despensers acted as de-facto kings in England under Edward II (Hugh and his father, Hugh the elder).Mortimer and Isabella had Edward II removed (and likely murdered), and usurped power from Edward III until the King rebelled, overthrew and executed Mortimer.
This article is about justice, but you shall forgive the history lesson. Typically, executing nobles was not the first response to perceived wrongdoing, and although he was certainly guilty of some (many) of the crimes for which he was accused, le Despenser likely had a right to feel somewhat put out by the choice of punishment. The imbalance of crime and punishment is a good jumping off point for the evolution of my understanding of justice.
Growing up, I developed a strong concept of what I thought was right and wrong, and the idea that those who cause harm always deserve to be punished. Recently I have had these ideas challenged, and come to understand that oftentimes, the wicked shall go unpunished, and that’s okay.
The best summary for my new view on justice is “for justice to truly be just, it must allow space for the harmed individual to heal, and for the perpetrator to be reformed”.
On a macro level, we hear politicians talk about being tough on crime, passing harsher sentencing laws, and further alienating those who have been targeted by the justice system, thereby pushing them out of society. We see the schadenfreude after elections with the concept of “Leopards Eating Faces”, the delicious irony of people being hurt by the same harmful policies they voted in favour of levying on others.
On a micro level, we may see people justifying harming those in their lives (or perpetuating cycles of abuse) by arguing they were originally the injured party, and so the other person deserves to suffer.
Now this isn’t to argue that we must forgive everyone who ever causes us harm. Forgiveness is given, not owed, and certainly not earned. Forcing someone to forgive is (in and of itself) an act of harm. If we push someone to forgive and forget without allowing the injured party to heal and process the harm they have experienced, then we deny them their agency and their recovery. If we force someone to move on and coexist with their abuser, we undermine the idea that harming people is wrong.
If someone harms you, you are allowed to be angry, you are allowed to process, and that concept of working out feelings should not be rushed or ignored. If I hurt you, it is completely your prerogative to never interact with me again. Coerced forgiveness in service of a flawed idea of restorative justice is ineffective and undermines the stated goals of the project of reform.
However, if we base a system of justice on the idea that the harmed party gets to decide which eye to remove from the person who hurt them, we perpetuate a never-ending cycle of feuds and counter-feuds.
In their video essay Harm and Justice, The Leftist Cooks cite a 1995 study by Stamp & Sabourin which found that “justifications for abuse often amount to the batterer saying, ‘I wanted to be treated better’, whether that’s frustration with (their partner’s) bad behaviour, or the abuser perceiving themselves as justifiably retaliating.” This brings us back to the random history lesson at the start of this all. If we root our abuse of others in our sense of hurt, are we not rejoicing in malice whilst steeping ourselves in iniquity?
If we take as given that forgiveness is a gift, and hurting people in retaliation is not the best approach, what can we do? I think there are a few things. Collectively, I believe we need to reframe what appropriate restitution is. Individually, we need to learn what an appropriate apology is, acknowledge the harm that is caused, allow the harmed person to express their feelings and then respect their boundaries.
There may be situations where people want to be left alone, the friendship and relationship may end, and you may never see that person again. These are natural consequences to actions, and they are better than continuing to perpetuate harm against one (or both) parties. It’s also important for the party who has caused harm to seek help. Not to suggest everyone who has caused harm (which is all of us) has or is a problem, but understanding the roots of the harm caused will help to prevent the behaviour from being repeated.
And for justice to truly be just, we must reduce the chance of the harm being perpetuated and/or repeated. Go to therapy, talk to your friends, your family, to strangers, read, and challenge yourself to navigate situations differently. The important thing (and in my mind the beautiful thing) to remember is that we all have agency and the ability to learn and grow. Our adaptability and resilience are some of the most beautiful parts of the human experience. This ties into the views of prison abolitionists and reformers.
For the majority of offenders, longer sentences, punitive justice, the death sentence, and other approaches amounting to locking people up and throwing away the key are not acts of justice. They are acts of repressive and state sponsored harm. In order to heal society from the harm caused by (most) crime, the solution is reform and restoration. If we deal with the underlying socio-economic factors which drive people to commit crimes, we can reduce the crime ratesratse in the society. If we offer prisoners the opportunity of reform, opportunities to learn and develop skills, and the opportunity to rejoin society without their previous crimes weighing them down, we are more likely to collectively heal.
In Volume one of Kapital, Marx quotes Terence (the Roman playwright) stating Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto ("I am man, nothing that is human is indifferent to me"). Marx’ may have used the quote in the contextto refer ofto the plight of the 19th century proletariat, but I believe it bears the same weight today as it did then, and as it did in 165 BC when Terence published his comedy Heautontimorumenos (The tormentor of himself).
We are all connected within the societies we live in, and the consequences of the harm we experience and perpetuate are not only felt by those who experience them directly. They reverberate through our lives and those around us. The grace we show someone today when reintegrating them and helping them understand the nature of the harm they caused, why they caused it, and how they can avoid repeating those actions in the future may have wide reaching consequences in ways we may not fathom in the moment.
We likely have all heard the phrase “hurt people hurt people”, and this is an effective understanding of how unaddressed harm can perpetuate itself. “Children who experience violence in the home (whether witnessing it or having violence be directed at them) are more likely to experience adverse physical and mental health impacts”. They are also more likely to continue the cycle of abuse themselves. The question then is how to break the cycle of abuse.
In a thesis by Oliver Harrison on the long term effects of domestic violence on children, Harrison suggests raising awareness, public policy and support system reforms, and enhancements of social services. By ensuring we understand the underlying factors leading to individuals acting out in adulthood and providing an adequate social safety net, we can move towards a framework that prevents people’s future families witnessing and experiencing abuse, thereby breaking the cycle.
The title of this article comes from the song Esmerelda from the Hunchback of Notre Dame musical. Claude Frollo reassures Captain Phoebus whilst searching for Esmerelda “Have no fear, the wicked shall not go unpunished, the heart of the wicked is of little worth”. But like the quote at the start of this article there is a sense of irony here (just like in Notre-Dame de Paris from which the musical is adapted). Frollo is the objectively wicked one, and yet he has prospered. He is a wealthy archdeacon, a respected man of the cloth, and he has a beautiful voice. And yet, he is driven to distraction by Esmerelda, and seeks to destroy her, not because she has done anything wrong, but because he cannot have her (“but she will be mine or she will burn” – Hellfire).
Frollo may get his punishment at the end of the story, but how often in real life do we see the wicked escape punishment. By virtue of wealth, power, or status, we see it happen all the time, those responsible for horrendous crimes escape with a slap on the wrist or no punishment at all, whilst innocents suffer under collective punishment through no fault of their own.
So, we understand that a more holistic understanding of harm is needed, and there are issues with some of our current approaches. What about when I have been harmed and just want revenge? Well, it’s important to acknowledge that your feelings are valid. Your brain responds to various stimuli in different ways, and suppressing our emotions is often not helpful.
The onus should not be on the person harmed to forgive, move on, comfort or accept comfort from the person who has harmed them. However, it is important to allow oneself grace and time and avoid lashing out and repeating that harm. We should aim to avoid moving from victim to victimizer and allowing ourselves to ignore the hurt we’re causing by constantly stoking our initial anger.
For those who have caused hurt, we must learn how to better apologize and take accountability. You may not be able to make things up to the person you have hurt, but there is a responsibility to learn, self-reflect and consider why our actions were so hurtful. If we can ensure that we learn from our errors and prevent ourselves from making the same mistakes in the future, we can truly become better versions of ourselves.
To end this article with some personal reflections. Over the past few years I have lost two of the most important relationships of my life due to situations where I was the initial bad actor. I spiraled into a cycle of guilt and allowed myself to be mistreated as I was following the misguided idea that if I allowed the hurt party to punish me however they thought was appropriate I could earn forgiveness.
By not navigating that first situation properly, the environment for the decline and fall of the second relationship was formed. In one of those situations, instead of the situation ending with the initial hurt, communication and apology, it led to a spiral of hurt, self-flagellation, and by the end, acts of self-violence. This is not a sustainable way to address harm, especially when the initial incident was relatively minor (in comparison to the impact on my life, the life of the hurt party, and the lives of those around us). A recent conversation about one of these now long dead relationships spurred me to write this. It is a snapshot of the journey I’ve been on to learn how better to hold myself accountable and rebuild some level of self-respect, as well as the questions I have had to ask about justice, repair and recovery.
It’s okay for others to be upset at you, it’s okay for people to leave your life, it’s okay to make mistakes. It’s not okay, in my opinion, to act out of malice towards others (or yourself). It’s not okay to excuse harmful actions, and it’s not okay to refuse to learn from our experiences. I used to tell the people I love that I would die for them.
Recently, I have learned that living for them is more important, constantly striving to be the best version of yourself, the one they can trust and rely on, the one they can believe in and want to have in their life even when you mess up. That’s the version your loved ones deserve. That version knows how to apologize, that version knows how to move on without justifying harming those around them, and that version is within reach. For me, the journey continues and will likely never end.