Not all Crimes & Criminal acts are created Equal
Victims of Crime
When a person is first charged with a crime, it would almost seem he/she has more rights then the victim of the crime. You can sugar coat this anyway you want, however the person charged with the crime usually has more concern about his rights then the victims rights. The truth is in the initial first stages of someone charged with a crime, the burden of proof is on the crown to prove that this person is guilty. If you are a person charged with a crime, it is more important to the police and crown to uphold your rights, and in some cases over the rights of victim. Why does this happen you may ask, it just doesn't sound right? The reason is simply, everyone is innocent till proven guilty. It is important that everyone get a fair trail no matter what, or the person could end up walking away guilty or not. As a victim you may be very upset with this process and feel even more violated. The person is convicted of the crime his or her nightmare just begins. Regardless of how it may look in the upfront process, the person charged with the crime suffers considerable in the long run. If more people could understand how this would affect their life on the long term basis, I am sure crime would not happen near as much as it does.
Criminal Offences & Offenders
Excessive Optimism is often the denial of reality; a pessimistic outlook is often the result of not coming to grips with it. In short reality sucks and often as ex-cons we suffer from our delusion of grandiose many times before we come to grips with our reality. Quite often when we first are released from prison, we often have distorted views of our crime or criminal involvement, for example if we killed someone who ratted us out, we often feel justified by our actions, perhaps better then say a sex offender. Prison desensitizes and motives us towards a level of reality that we are forced to embrace for our survival, which eventually separates us from the mainstream thinking of society. Over time some convicts will no longer be able to adjust to normal life and is often referred to as being institutionalized. To some degree we are all products of our society and socialization, even in the best of circumstances we are still influenced and affected by it. Anyone who spends over a year in prison is going to have some effects, and it may be deeper the longer you stay in. It would seem the ones who are most affected by this are either convicts who have been in for over 10 years or ones who get out and return less then 6 months each time, over and over again. Often referred to as "Life on the installment Plan".
Not all crimes are created equal. What do I mean by that? A lot of crimes people can understand and almost sympathize with you. However the line for that sympathy gets a little thinner when it is a violent crime in nature, sexual assault, rape, or murder. Almost anyone will get a pass for committing an offence such as a break & enter when you are younger, especially if you learned your lesson and were never in trouble again. The line for tolerance of these crimes also tends to get a bit thick when you habitually repeat the same offences. I fully would like to see more changes in that area, if someone commits more then 3 separate periods of offences or new charges after the sentence is imposed or completed, even if it is property offences they should be treated as a habitual non-violent offender. At that point the system should impose stronger imprisonment sentences and take more action. Most of the people committing these offences may not be violent in nature, however I am also concerned what would happen if the next home they broke into someone was there. When you commit a crime even if it is not violent in nature, the risk of someone getting hurt is always there and some of these offenders are only a circumstance away from murder. By not treating repetitive criminals who are non violent offenders, it is only a matter of time before they graduate, or their crimes escalate.
Many offences really depend on circumstances, however the criminal code when getting a criminal record check done, does not give very much to the circumstances. For example you could have two people charge and convicted of manslaughter. One could have got into a physical fight with no weapons and punched the other person and on the way down he hit is his head and later died. The other was stabbed to death without provocation, never the less when the criminal check is done, it will both come up with a conviction of manslaughter. My point is most of us would look at the two crimes as different and you might be able to relate to one of them and not the other. Indictable offences can be quite burdensome for anyone to work around regardless of the reason behind it, or the circumstances, we are often never even faced with the opportunity to explain it. Most would just not take the chance on hiring us and avoid it all together.
I will give you an example of this about two years ago I went for a job interview, I told them I had a criminal record in the interview. She informed me that would not be a big concern as they have hired people with them before. She was thinking I was in the normal category I guess, because she didn't ask me what it was. Anyways, I filled out the discloser from for them to do a background check. There was few of us there and we were all informed we would be hired and to start the following week. I got a call the next day informing me that they were no longer extending the offer of employment to me. I didn't get mad or anything, at this stage in my life I expected it. However today if that were to happen to me I would file a lawsuit. I personally feel that there should be two levels to pardons; a person needs to work and live no matter what they have done. I think that if a person is doing well and remains inactive with out incident for a period of 3 years, they should get a clean record only as far as employment goes. However in all other areas the record should show up as normal until a full pardon is received.
In order for anyone to work and live and be a law abiding citizen, usually a job or career is needed. Often, this is huge drawback to an offender, and over time often ends up causing more recidivism, regardless of how dedicated an excon is to making it in society. This should be automatic and should not be hard to obtain. However if you are involved with crime or charged it should also be automatically show back up. It would need to work both ways to have any value.
In a lot of cases including myself, I have been punished far beyond my sentence. I have had so many missed opportunities due to my past, regardless of major changes in my lifestyle. I can understand it for a period of time, and that is to be expected. However, when does it end? How many years after your sentence is completed should an excon be made to suffer? How many jobs do I need to be turned down from? How many woman need to reject me because of it? How many friends do I need to lose? How long will it be before I can cross the borders of my country? If you include my whole sentence and the time I have been in society it has been close to 18 years, and I am sure I will be suffering from it in another 10 years from now as well. I am very glad that my violent act was not one against a woman, and I really do not think it would have been as I have always been against violence against woman. My point for saying that is, when I am dating a woman and I decide to tell her, that is usually the first question out of there mouth, "Tell me you didn't kill your wife or girlfriend". So your past just doesn't affect your chances of jobs it also affects your chance of a future relationship, friendships and almost everything you do. I just want the average person in society to understand it just doesn't stop when the sentence is complete. It just never goes away, for those of you who have to have the feeling or need for justice, or feel we should never be let out of prison. Perhaps you will find some joy in this sentence, it is a lot like a disability and it follows us and looms over us for the rest of our life, pardons do offer some relief, but they also have limitations.
Habitual Violent Offenders
Habitual violent offenders actually do very well in most prison setting and usually run the place or have there say in a lot that goes on within the prison population. Even when released they are often surrounded themselves with people of like mind, even on the outside of prison. These could be individuals associated with organized crime, gang related connections, or a host of criminal actives that dominate there lifestyle. Due to the apprehension they create around society often a lot of the crimes they commit seem to go unpunished, so that is why when the courts, and justice system finally get even lesser offences on them, they are often sentenced to longer and maximum lengths in prison.
Serial killers
These are a different bread of criminal all together; I am not going to comment much on this topic, only to say they are different then almost all other classes of criminals. They seem to bare very little resemblance to the motivations of any other type of crimes or criminals. In fact there are books and years of study dedicated to this issue.
Sex Offenders & Prison Population & Society View Points
Another type of crime that is in a much different categories, then the others above is crimes sexual in nature. Crimes like rape and sexual assaults against another adult usually do not go over well in the prison population. Society tends to have very little sympathy for these types of crimes as well, especially since most of them are committed by men towards woman. Depending on your crime you could end up on a sex offender's directory, and be watched and monitored long after your sentence is complete. It is often one of the most misunderstood and hated crimes by society and other convicts. That is one level of sex crimes the other level is ones that are sexual crimes against children. These are the most abhorrent and considered the lowest from of crime by not only the average population in society; these individuals are even hated by the prison population and inmates, guards, etc.
Conclusion
So all crimes are not created equal, if you have been charged with DUI (Drinking & Driving) it will not hurt your chances of being hired in about 80% of the companies, if you are honest and upfront about it. If you were charged with an assault your chances are about 70% of getting hired (as long as no died or was seriously hurt) and you were upfront about it as well. If you hurt someone and they were seriously hurt or died as a result of your actions. It is going to be hard for you to get hired at any place with them knowing this upfront, and in my experience it doesn't matter how honest you are. I have only had one person who was willing to do that and hire me, in the 11 years I have been looking. Jobs and employment are only one casualty of circumstances, lose of friends, family, spouses, and your standing in society often take deep loses as well. I personally feel that if a person fully understood his/her actions and what the outcome of committing a crime would be in the long run, crime would have very little appeal. It would be a wonderful thing to know that this site and my words helped someone who got out of prison to not re-offend again. It would be a joy to my heart to know that it actually prevented someone from every committing a crime.
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The Road to Freedom
Is there life after prison?