PEOPLE WHO COMMIT CRIMES
ARE NOT THE ENEMY
E-Mail By Calbraith MacLeod Bio/Address
It is important in any "War" (i.e. "war on crime") to know precisely what one is struggling against. I and many other convicted people I know have experienced three mental states —the compulsive thoughts, the physical attraction, and the cycle of behavior and beliefs and emotions. It is my contention that these three elements are the enemy of most convicted people. These elements are very real, very influential, and very responsible for many a convicted person's destructive behaviors. These are the elements constituting the criminal lifestyle, and these are the hurdles the majority of us convicted people need to overcome in order to liberate ourselves from the smothering cloak of a destructive lifestyle.
Since compulsive thoughts, physical attraction, and a distorted cycle of behavior and belief and emotions are the elements driving people to commit crimes, it is these elements that are truly the enemy of society, crime victims and criminals alike.
What follows is my description of the third element that leads people to and holds them in a criminal lifestyle. We convicted people cannot escape the criminal lifestyle on our own. Our thinking cannot correct our thinking. We need the clear thinking of outside people to lead us out of the criminal lifestyle. I don't know that Society has any moral obligation to help us, but I know we need that help. I was totally helpless until I began following the suggestions of some people who had been shown effective ways to change their lives.
The fact is, we people who have committed crimes are not the enemy, and our victims were never our enemies. We only thought they were, just as many of them and society now mistakenly think we are. The real enemy of all concerned is the criminal lifestyle and the conditions sowing it, supporting it and perpetuating it. It would be great to see criminals, victims, and society join together to fight the criminal lifestyle and its causes instead of fighting each other simply because we are blind to the nature of the real culprit.
