Ms. Wilson's article examines our legal and judicial system of justice. There are two (2) truths about her opinion that leap off the pages at me: 1) the fallacy of our prosecutorial system of justice, and 2) the dehumanization of the guilty. The prosecutor holds the key to a just trial, but sometimes in their zeal to win a verdict, they turn a blind eye to justice and believe the means justify the ends to their crusade. The prosecutor is allowed to use whatever means necessary to convict the defendant with little to no prosecutorial oversight. Once a defendant has been found guilty, our legal and judicial system, and society as a whole view the prisoner or felon as less than human. And thus, his or her rights as a human being are absolved, and they can be treated unjustly or unfairly because of the "label" they carry with them. Our legal and judicial system of justice will not be reformed until we see prisoners, convicts, and felons as human beings. I'm not talking about criminals that have performed heinous and unthinkable acts of violence against their victim, but the many criminals who have been convicted of non violent acts of crimes. Once the "label" of felon or convict is attached to the person, our society as a whole dehumanizes them.
1
I have long felt that habitual reading of Dostoyevsky classics helps to explain the psyches and actions of the sick, evil, and repugnant elements among us. How should we treat them? This is what humanity has grappled with from time immemorial. Along comes the Golden State Killer—serial rapist, mass murderer, former cop, in other words a modern Dostoyevskian character. Am I cupable? I lived 3000 miles away when he committed his heinous crimes.
However, perhaps we’re all guilty for the fact that the lives of those in law enforcement and criminal justice are often brutish and corrupting. Maybe we’re all responsible if there’s such a thing as a”deep state of criminal injustice.” In the end and paradoxically maybe collective guilt like grace is everywhere.
1
Some people are just plain bad, and others drift into crime for various reasons. The legal system needs to do a better job of identifying the former, and of preparing the latter for life after prison. If you're broke, untrained, and all you know is how to be a criminal, what do you think is going to happen when you get out of prison?
2
"And the more I drink, the more I feel it. That's why I drink too. I try to find sympathy & feeling in drink...I drink so that I may suffer twice as much!"
Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Crime & Punishment
Some of the old timers used to drink that way in this country. I don't know about present day Russia. As for myself, I feel better already. I have had the great fortune to be in the presence of those saints, some of whom had committed crimes. And my life was changed forever.
I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the spoiler here, re: "The Brothers Karamazov." Ms. Wilson: What is the point of reading 776 pages (in the superb translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky) of this murder mystery, when you've already told us who the murderer is?
While it may be true (as Dmitri says) that we share a collective guilt, not knowing the identity of the actual culprit still matters, and it mattered to Dostoyevsky, who took great pains to give us SUSPENSE. It's the spine of his plot.
Please revise this article before too many people who haven't read the novel see it and wonder what would be the point - which would be a shame, don't you think, in a time when "Fifty Shades of Gray" has made it to the "top 100 hundred novels" list on PBS's "Great American Read"?
1
'because “everyone is guilty for everyone else.”'
That's from the Pevear and Valokhonsky translation, and it doesn't make sense. Someone can be guilty of a crime, but not "for everyone else".
Garnett's translation makes sense: "Because we are all responsible for all."
3
True crime has been popular for a long time, as a visit to the 364 section of any public library will prove. Ann Rule's "The Stranger Beside Me" undoubtedly initiated this trend.
Russia is a motherland. Has been since forever. The USA gave up Motherland status in 1776.
To read about crime and punishment, law and justice from motherland inhabitants stuck in a fatherland gridlock read Nickajack by Robert Conley or Roundhouse by Louise Erdrich. The first few pages alone are immensely pedagogic and a good precursor to anything as foreign as Russians.
I wish a master like Dostoyevsky would never be mentioned in the same breath as Netflix.
5
It is interesting to read this article in light of the recent NYT revelations of prosecutors seeking hard prison sentences for associates of overdosing drug addicts. At the time of reading that stunning news I was struck with incredulity, at the injustice of it all. My reaction is multiplied after seeing this piece.
Also, if you look at justice or injustice in the matters of nations it is easy to see why the US is reluctant to join with international courts and tribunals in the matters of war crimes. Were there to be a real reckoning, our nation would find itself up among the leaders in items on the docket.
7
"In The Dark" is the best of the recent true crime podcasts I've heard. Season 2 is excellent so far.
However - prosecutors don't sentence people. Kind of surprised NYT opinion editors didn't catch that.
2
A Dostoevsky novel sitting on a shelf is a bowl of anxiety and confusion, a bundle of frustrations marked by a desperate need for redemption. His protagonists are shown in extreme situations, where not only their personality but their very nature is put to the test.
1
Dostoyevsky's works were not the only Russian stories about crime and punishment. Leonid Andreyev's "Seven Who Were Hanged" comes to mind, for example, and Chekhov's "Sakhalin Island". The latter is not fiction but basically reportage to be sure, but it was written by a master. More nearly contemporary are Shalamov's "Kolyma Tales", Solzhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" and many others in the gulag genre. It is interesting to compare descriptions of the Tsarist and Soviet punishment systems. "Siberia and the Exile System" by George Kennan (not George F. Kennan) provides a useful "outsider" perspective on the Tsarist system.
Lloyd Kannenberg
4
I had read both of these literary masterpieces over 35 years ago. This fascinating article, looking at Dostoyevsky's works through 21st century eyes, has made me rethink the characters I thought I knew. Time to read them again, and reevaluate what crime and punishment means in our current society.
5
Ah, yes, Dostoevsky!! I grew up on a farm and didn't read much, a little sci-fi and The Hardy Boys. When I went off to college in 1959, one of my professors assigned Crime and Punishment, and that lit a fire in me that has never burned out. I literally could not put it down. In the following couple of years, I read everything Dostoevsky wrote, (Yes, The Brothers Karamazov!) and even branched out into a couple of his biographies. Anxiously awaited each publication of Joseph Frank's multivolume set. Fascinating man. Amazing writing. I went on to Turgenev, Tolstoy, Sholokhov. I even considered majoring in Russian literature but finally settled on engineering while in the US Air Force. (Dostoevsky had been a military engineer, and yes, that had an influence.) He is the reason I became an author myself, not that I could ever write the type of stuff he wrote. But who can, really. When I look back, I realize that I cut my moral teeth on his novels. Such compassion. Such knowledge of humanity. Such insight. Such a sense of the ridiculous. Reread Karamazov when the Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky translation came out.
As for "true crime" and a sense of the ridiculous, I do at times binge on "Forensic Files." I watched "Making of a Murdered," skeptically, but when it came to the prosecution and incarceration of Brendan Dassey, in spite of the tapes of the flawed interviews and criminal actions of his own attorney, I just lost it. It's bizarre story in the Dostoevsky tradition.
2
"Dostoyevsky was likewise inclined toward clemency, writing approvingly of the acquittal of a pregnant woman named Kornilova who threw her 6-year-old stepdaughter from a four-story window."
Would Dostoyevsky also urge us to acquit Cosby and Weinstein, neither of whom has been accused of murder? Should Trump's treasonous collusion be forgiven so at 71 he may have time to grow and mature and see the error of his ways? Should we simply forgive everyone for everything so as not to be blind to their underlying humanity?
A person wrongfully accused of a crime is a tragedy. A person serving a sentence for a crime they committed is justice.
4
"Where was the space, he wondered, to properly attend to the moral regeneration of those who had committed acts of violence?"
It's a question that Dostoievski asked in 19th century czarist Russia, but that today remains as new and crucial as it was almost 2 centuries ago, unfortunately.
We like to call ourselves "civilized", but when it comes to creating a "moral regeneration" of criminals, we're still nowhere at all.
Instead, we're stuck in the completely false and simplistic notion that somehow, all what we can and should do, as a society, with criminal behavior, is to "punish" the perpetrator. That means: make him suffer, and then somehow that suffering will turn him NOT into an even more bitter and society hating individual, but into a morally and mentally stable and decent human being.
As most of us know that of course, something like that won't happen, we try to console ourselves with the idea that at least making criminals suffer may discourage others to become criminals too - although there are still no studies confirming this hypothesis.
There do are reasons for hope though, as the last 2 decades of scientific research start giving us insight into the causes of violent behavior. The opposite being compassionate behavior (= desiring to end someone's suffering and being able to do so), it has been shown that people are compassionate only to the extent that they were trained in self-compassion. So THAT is what we should teach prisoners, rather than hurting them..
11
I'm not sure what scientific research you're alluding to, but as a psychologist, I'm familiar with the rise of positive psychology and mindfulness and their focus on self-compassion. Many, if not most, of these studies have significant limitations, e.g., small sample size, reliance on self-questionnaires (highly unreliable), etc.
More importantly, though, focusing on individuals, in this case prisoners, and how they feel about themselves is unlikely to lead to significant change. We have to think about this as a systemic issue. Addressing institutional and economic inequality, creating a more just society, would most likely lead to less crime in the first place. Instead of teaching self-compassion to prisoners, we should be exposing and repairing the many inhumane laws and policies that create the conditions for crime.
7
@ SG
I certainly agree with the 2nd part of your comment, but on the one hand, both changing laws to increase inequality of opportunities AND including self-compassion training in our school programs and treatment of prisoners is perfectly possible, in theory, as they are complementary.
On the other hand, yes I was talking about the thousands of scientific studies about self-compassion through specific meditation techniques that have been published for 2 decades already, but I don't see how you could somehow still discard them as being too "limited".
If you read the studies that experts such as Kristin Neff (University of Texas), Daniel Goleman, Mark Williams, Chade Meng Tan, among so many others, have done or refer to, I don't see how today you could deny the already available evidence, which is all pointing into the same direction, and pretend as if we don't know at all what kind of psychological mechanisms accompany violent behavior.
Moreover, if you compare these studies to many other studies in "psychology" of the last 50 years, imho you cannot but acknowledge that overall, they tend to be more rather than less scientifically valid.
A good example of a non profit organization specialized in both teaching emotional intelligence and mindfulness to prisoners and taking other aspects of incarceration into account (including scientific studies about its effectiveness), is:
https://mindfuljustice.org/
I'd guess that Dostoievski would strongly support this ...
The fact that there have been thousands of studies on self-compassion doesn’t mean these studies aren’t limited. For example, this study (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5770484/) demonstrates no link between self-compassion and compassion towards others. Kristen Neff et al. are all the rage these days for a number of reasons, but—again—it doesn’t follow that their interpretations of the results are Truth. Studies can demonstrate almost anything. But when we look closely at the methodology and consider various interpretations of the results, the limitations become quite apparent. Remember when butter was bad and margarine good? And how fat was the worst thing in the world for our health but now we “know” it’s sugar?
As for what Dostoevsky would support, it’s irrelevant. Let’s not forget as well that he was a raging anti-Semite. Compassion is often not applied equally.
1
"Shared sense of responsibility that we have for one another" is exactly the opposite of the Libertarian "philosophy" so current today. Dostoyevsky's view was grounded in the Judeo-Christian ethic, but the moral degeneration of the current political situation is exactly the opposite. The ungenerous hearts of the envious American multitude allow anyone who can to take advantage of them. The rich gather into their own maw all the surplus that could be going to righting injustices and providing equal opportunites. This prevents us from reforming our healthcare system, immigration policy, public education... or working toward saving the species itself by preventing climate change. We have to recognize that we are collectively responsible for solving our problems, or we fall victim to autocratic tyranny, and most of us into permanent serfdom and poverty.
7
An impressive piece reflecting on the morality of justice and the innate potential for brilliant exposition to outweigh a conscious obligation.
The acknowledgment and acceptance of sin is of paramount importance in the judicial system, but, as pointed out, does not require a personal or societal abrogation of the moral argument.
“Forgive me Father, but I have sinned” must not be the only catchecism, no, there must be an understanding that to learn we must make mistakes, though, as pointed out, judgement of the most heinous crimes warrants a complete sentence. Yet there must always be an opportunity for moral redemption so that even those whom commit the most evil acts may experience salvation.
1
Here's a simple way to measure the "justice" in the justice system. Find out how much having money improves a defendant's outcome. Apply the same metric to race and sex for a measure of how fair or unfair the system really is.
11
A very thought-provoking article. One minor quibble: the title of Dostoyevsky's last book is properly "The Karamazov Brothers." In Russian, the title is "Brat'ya Karamazovy." This is the normal word order in Russian; nothing out of the ordinary or pretentious about it. Logically, then, the English rendering should also follow the normal, everyday order in English. After all, no one talks about the "Brothers Marx," or the "Brothers Warner."
So, now, let's all go read "The Karamazov Brothers."
7
Another warning in "Crime and Punishmeny" is the belief held by Rodion Raskolnikov that he was above the law; that he knew best; that he was "Superman" of a Nietchze model. He could commit murder because he could put the material gains to better use. Now there is a play acting out before us right now. The incidental murder of the sister is disturbing. Rodion could not put the brakes on his actions, once he set it in motion. It complicates any simple character analysis of him.
Another theme throughout the novel is the destructive force of poverty.
Bernard Shaw said that poverty is the only sin. That gives me pause.
3
Thank you for this piece. Time to reread Dostoyevsky (& Tolstoy).
8
'The occasion a thief makes'. :La ocasio'n hace al ladro'n, in Spanish. Circumstances do make us, in many ways, though poorly explored... but worth considering.
4
It is an old Latin proverb, Occasio facit furem - Opportunity makes a thief.
But thank you for the Spanish.
1
By far the best account of this field is to be found in 'Russia's Legal Fictions' by Harriet Murav (1998)
https://books.google.com/books/about/Russia_s_Legal_Fictions.html
3
Justice? I hope no one is looking for justice in this country or world. Want justice? Then buy the justice you want. Can't afford it? Then suffer the injustice. I was the victim of a rogue, juvenile cop’s arrest years ago. I went to a lawyer and immediately plunked down $5K for justice. The cop was a known bad apple. I didn’t realize it then but I was doing both him and his police department a favor. Not only was the arrest thrown out, but I got $10K back from the city for my effort and abuse. To be honest, I hope the end result for the cop was that he learned how to be a better cop. Who knows?
9
Ms. Wilson's article examines our legal and judicial system of justice. There are two (2) truths about her opinion that leap off the pages at me: 1) the fallacy of our prosecutorial process of justice, and 2) the dehumanization of the guilty. The prosecutor holds the key to a just trial, but sometimes in their zeal to win a verdict, they turn a blind eye to justice and believe the means justify the ends to their crusade. Once a defendant has been found guilty, our legal and judicial system, and society as a whole view the prisoner or felon as less than human. And thus, his or her rights as a human being are absolved, and they can be treated unjustly or unfairly because of the "label" they carry with them. Our legal and judicial system of justice can not be reformed until we see prisoners and felons as human beings. I'm not talking about criminals that have performed heinous and unthinkable acts of violence, but the many criminals who have been convicted of non violent acts of crimes. Once they carry the "label" our society as a whole dehumanizes them.
33
Remember, Raskolnikov murdered not only the "evil" pawn-broker but also her innocent sister. Is he thus one of those "criminals that have performed heinous and unthinkable acts of violence" who is unworthy of being treated as a human being?
I think Dostoevsky is asking us to go much further than even those with reasonably open-hearts and minds are prepared to go. And therein lies the real challenge.
3
A society is judged by the way it treats the criminal justice system. The law was used in Nazi Germany to destroy the lives of the Jewish population and every other part of society that the Nazis hated.
The way that African Americans, and Mexicans are treated
is a window into the way that the law is being used to discriminate against part of the population.
Consider how over 1500 children have gone missing
at the border - frightening laws.
Does American society have any internal guilt about laws that are being used to shape an ideology?
Maybe Dostoyevsky Should be essential reading.
27
Of course we have guilt about it. Not all of us agree with the behavior of the police, or with how the legal system works. It may be law but it isn't justice.
8
Good point.
Agree that it maybe law but it is not justice.
Justice is an ideological construct - laws are
those values by which we all live and conform to develop a more peaceful society.
Socrates said that the most important question that humans must answer is "How do we live together? "
Thank you for this thoughtful, erudite essay.
4
Any even-handed inquiries into the justice system should be welcomed, but Serial and other “ investigative” work has been completely one sided in favor of the convicted murderer.
Why? Because it sells. The harrowing idea of a wrongfully convicted human being rotting in a cell is tragic and extremely compelling journalism. Rightfully so.
But as for Serial, I would encourage anyone to look at the evidence in its totality, even outside of the podcast. The convicted murderer in Serial did not even testify at his own trial ( though willingly spoke for multiple episodes absent and cross examination in the podcast), was the person last seen with the victim, could not remember where he was at the time of the murder, wrote entries threatening to kill the victim, was found to have a map of the location where the body was found with the burial location circled, admitted killing the victim to a friend who helped him bury the body ( yes that’s a witness who buried the body with the convicted murderer), and the victim just happened to be his ex girlfriend that broke up with him. And he strangled her- perhaps the most intimate form of murder. This is far from an exhaustive list.
I implore anyone to look at all of these facts and ponder: What about the family of the victim?
9
" The convicted murderer in Serial did not even testify at his own trial ". The Constitution permits defendants to refuse to testify, and many don't. Testifying makes the defendant vulnerable to cross-examination by the prosecutor, which can be very dangerous. A friend of mine was on the jury in a trial where that happened: The prosecutor took the defending lawyer's case apart and the jury convicted the accused.
When I cracked one too many joking asides in English class my first year in high school, I was assigned, gulp, a book review of "War and Peace". This was no mini-punishment, _ knew, having been assigned Steinbeck or Conrad. Within a month, and 600, words, I was spending every spare moment in the Russian lit section of the library. There was so much to ponder, beginning with the redemptive love of Sophia and the need to face one's crimes and internal punishments.
In university a mustachioed Kentuckian smiled and winked and said, "You understand, as the novel "Crime and Punishment" proceeds the attraction of Raskolnokoff's first murder, but does he understand the unintended murder of the moneylender's sister who happens on the scene? Why did we need that one, too" 60 years later, I ponder that book, that killing, that query, that professor.
Ponder evil around one, in one. E.g., what is Trump pondering? Thank heaven for the Russian novel and my luck in getting so many wonder-suffused teachers. "The unexamined life is not worth living": are you listening, Trump?
16
I've read most of Dostoyevsky's works. Some several times. And love them all. Recently I re-read "Notes From the Underground" and "Crime and Punishment." Yet, I am at a loss to follow the author's argument. I don't believe many/any Dostoyevsky scholars would agree that he was "obsessed" with the judiciary. While he experienced the vagaries of the Russian justice system, his was more a moral and religious obsession.
Somehow trying to connect Dostoyevsky's "crime writer" talent with American TV series and "American" justice seems misguided if not illogical. And certainly not helpful for anyone unjustly incarcerated in our country (or any country) today.
Anyone who wants to help the wrongly convicted or imprisoned innocent should contributed to the Innocence Project.
PS: This grammatical goof, a zeugma (use of a word to modify or govern two or more words, usually in such a manner that is applies to each in a different sense) is also disturbing: "So enmeshed were Dostoyevsky 'and' his writing in the legal consciousness of czarist Russia that defense attorneys were known to invoke Rodion Raskolnikov..."
11
Good article, and wonderful graphic to accompany it.
3
Dostoevsky, through his character of Sonya Marmeladova, reveals the power of Christian redemptive and restorative love to Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov, both of whom transgressed societal boundaries, she as a prostitute, and he as a murderer. In addition, his character of Porfiry Petrovich, the compassionate investigator, questions RRR as to whether he believes in the raising of Lazarus, the New Jerusalem, and God, all of which questions, Raskolnikov answers affirmatively.
Dostoevsky’s genius is to show how divine laws are the basis of just human laws and a belief that all humans are worthy of redemption.
32
The article fails to acknowledge that Dostoyevsky was volatile and that his opinions changed a lot during his life -- starting with near-revolutionary fervor and ending with morbid ideas about "salvation by suffering". It matters which period of his life you're drawing the quotations from.
1
A scholar of "Russian literature" means what exactly? She gets Dostoyevsky?
"Dostoyevsky ultimately wanted people to feel more at ease with the concept of guilt." She knew him?
Her "analysis" of "most famously, Crime and Punishment" stands in Jordan Peterson's shadow.
But if Ms. Wilson wants to get what's going on today--I suggest Orwell.
2
I don't understand the vitriol. She's a scholar, she's dedicated time and effort studying Dostyevsky. The fact she doesn't know him doesn't negate her knowledge. And she is pointing out some timeless themes.
Do you know Orwell?
4
There's no "vitriol" in the comment. It's a question of diction. She's a "scholar", right?
In Dostoyevsky, guilt is ultimately a matter of an individual’s own existential self-judgment and conscience, not something that society, or a prosecutor, or a judge, or jury decides.
In this respect, as he oscillates between conceited self-approval and lacerating self-condemnation, Raskolnikov is continually contrasted with the novel’s two primary foil characters: the selfless and ever-compassionate Dunya and the malevolent sensualist Svidrigailov.
As for “collective guilt,” any depiction of Dostoyevsky as a champion of social justice and legal reform must unfortunately be set alongside his persistent and unapologetic anti-Semitism, with its heinous legacy --“His blood be on us and on our children.”
I have not read Dostoyevsky but after reading this OpEd I am reminded of the Jewish Yom Kippur prayers for forgiveness. The English translations of these prayers repeat a litany of terrible discretions such as lying, stealing and all forms of wickedness that humans inflict on ourselves. All of which we collectively proclaim guilt.
To my younger mind it didn't make individual sense for one to plead guilty and ask forgiveness for crimes not committed. I have learned however, that those specific, and out-loud communal words are intended to be a form of outwardly testifying responsibility for societal transgressions. My "owning up" helps to fill in for some of the guilt of those that don't have the courage to be accountable.
As well, I publicly have now proclaimed that it's my job to try to fix it. It's a big deal. I kinda wish a little bit I didn't try so hard to understand.
Self reflection is really exhausting.
1
This is such a wonderful article...the kind of thoughtful piece I expect to find in the NYTimes.
There is the famous story about sculptor Tony Smith driving students from Cooper Union down an as yet unopened NJTurnpike in the dead of night in the mid-1960s. The realization of the atomic American experience inside that car...the removal from context and history of the typical American suburban experience. A dislocation from past & context & relationship. Reading this article I wonder if this typical American experience also removes us from experience time & relationship in a way that would allow us to feel this type of collective guilt and, therefore, to feel the need to address it. Instead, it is a deficiency of will of the Other to address problems of their own making. When that deficiency impinges on "me" it is addressed as criminality...as dangerous. I guess I am saying that we (our society, loosely defined) is structured so as to be umabke to address this situation. Ot perpetuates the fundamentals of the problem in a structural way.
It is fascinating yet horrible to see nineteenth-century Russia transport itself into twenty-first century America. Dostoevsky is the only writer who understood the upside-down, chaotic world of an evolving empire in the throes decimation under the weight of its own greatness and weaknesses. Only he could have done justice to where this country is now.
Not sure if America can withstand the head-spinning weirdness of Russian corruption eating away at the crumbling structure from within.
2
The Innocence Project not only frees innocent people who remain incarcerated but works to reform the system responsible for their unjust imprisonment. They do good work that is often celebrated by the media. Sometimes it’s the only “feel-good” moment of a television newscast.
It’s a hard sell to convince individuals of collective guilt when discussing the crimes of Ed Gein or Jeffrey Dahmer. Dostoyevsky, in all his brilliance, could never have imagined such depravity.
1
The article and Jennifer Wilson’s learned, clearly-stated conclusions (augmented by readers’’ comments) were a pleasant discovery when I opened my eTimes thos morning! Smerdyakov, the half-brother (and son of’Stinking Lisa era”) was epilepti. When his had a seizure around the time of the murder, this led to testimony at trial about whether he could poossibly be guilty. In approaching this question and then convicting Dmitri Karamazov (falsely accused), Dostoyevski takes collective guilt to the next level. Each of them shared a motive though the means and rhe opportunity were murky! As an epileptic himself, Dostoyevski was exploring the issue of competence as an issue in culpability and guilt. Thank you for an jnsightful piece!
2
"It is not only our task to support the innocent or wrongly convicted but also to recognize the humanity of the guilty." This is what has been missing from our discourse. "The humanity of the guilty" means we should not refer to criminals as "animals." We are all sinners--the Bible tells us so--and if all sinners are animals, then we are all animals. I pray it isn't so.
6
Dostoevsky's humanity is manifest in his statement to the effect that the degree of civilization in a country can be seen by entering its prisons.
If he were with us today in the USA, I imagine he would attack relentlessly our longstanding rigging of our laws and punishments against African-Americans, where their humanity is deemed second class at best.
For reference see "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander.
1
I dissed Dostoyevski's The Possessed, about leftwing terrorists, without reading it, when young, because I just thought he was conservative.
After seeing much progressive mis-thinking, I'm still progressive, but open to his satire that sadly remains timeless.
“Guilt” should be attached only to identifiable party/ies who violate social norms established to protect anything from a live individual to the ecology of the planet through direct/directed action or deliberate inaction: non-, mis-, or malfeasance.
Unfortunately, EVERY society expands the list of illegal acts to those affecting none but the “guilty” party, because they‘re ‘different’: the actor does not share the majority’s belief in the the same taboos, rules believed desired by an implausible, or highly improbable supernatural being(s) as interpreted by their alleged spokesmen. Taboo behavior is simply what the majority calls bad though there’s no harm.
The Rule of Law is the freedom from making guilty/punishable people who violate taboo and holding ‘proper’ people and their leaders free from guilt for committing legitimately prohibited acts (defined well by “that which you would find abhorrent if done to you”) altered to remove the tyranny-of-the-majority basis of Populism, by adding basic democratic protection: the first: one should find abhorrent any limit to speech, unless it calls for, or is by itself actual harm; one cannot be ‘harmed’ by seeing taboo violated; it’s also required those with more than enough wealth to live well give a progressively larger portion of wealth for those who do not, try their best, & for supporting Law, infrastructure, health & education free of doctrinal taboo - free of ‘divine guidance, ‘ it’s tough work.Like PhiloOfLaw in<1500, whew.
There is nothing new under the sun. "Penny Dreadfuls" or their equivalent have been around as long as mass market printing. Perhaps scholars of Russian literature should look outside their boxes before telling us how their authors made this modern world.
1
The concept of rehabilitation of people convicted of crimes was a big part of 19th century Protestantism-probably associated with the second Great Awakening in Anglophone nations, beginning before the Civil War-this was around the time of the concept of early "penitentiaries", built in the east coast of the US was becoming popular. As the eponymous name suggests, penitentiaries were not to be mere holes, or dumps, in which those found guilty were sent to be tortured and to suffer miserably,(regardless what #Metoo supporters might prefer). They were supposed to have been places of quiet, designed after the idea of monateries and hermitages , where men,(and women), could be aided in their re habilitation as citizens and eventual return to society. Sentences were lso far shorter-there were fewer automatic ten and twenty year terms and judges made most of these decisions.
Unfortunately, the reality never lived up to the ideal, and eventually most US prisons simply refected the society which created them-distinctly non Catholic and all but resistant to the idea of "reform" of convicted criminals, regardless of their guilt or innocence. It is doubtful that 1 in 1000
Americans ever had read Dostoyevsky. Our federal system allowed for a different approach to imprisonment in each and every state, and this might have resulted in the one common attribute of them all-brutality and inhumanity.
9
Not everybody in the 19th century was thrilled with criminal rehabilitation. Dickens toward the end of "David Copperhead" satirized a "modern" prison where clever criminals manipulated naive reformers. The first convict David sees is Uriah Heep chanting "I am very umble, sir."
6
Also the “prediction” of reality TV.
A real trial takes months to years to prepare and lasts two days to six months.
Maybe for every “reality” show, somebody should broadcast “live from the courtroom”, pick a case, maybe a heavy bankruptcy, and broadcast ALL of it.
Or even a real murder case.
End-to-end. There’ll be lots of ad time to sell, but no takers after the first one.
Real trials are not spectacular. They are hideously dull - try living through more than a single jury instruction if you are not involved, or even if you are.
Real trials don’t make good fiction, whether or not the right guy’s found guilty of the right charges.
1
By the way "The Brothers Karamazov" (my favorite novel) was based on a true crime.
“Guilt” should be attached only to identifiable party/ies who violate social norms established to protect anything from a live individual to the ecology of the planet through direct/directed action or deliberate inaction: non-, mis-, or malfeasance.
Unfortunately, EVERY society expands the range of acts limited by Law to acts, affecting none but the “guilty” party, because the acts are different: the actor does not share the majority’s belief in the the same taboos believed imposed/desired by an implausible, or highly improbable individual/group of supernatural being(s) as interpreted by their alleged speaker. Taboo behavior is that which causes no harm.
Rule of Law is the freedom from making guilty/punishable people who violate taboo while holding ‘proper’ people and their leaders free from guilt for committing legitimately prohibited acts (defined well by “do not do to others that which you would find abhorrent if done to you”) altered to remove the tyranny-of-the-majority basis of Populism, with basic democratic protection: the first: one should find abhorrent any limit to thought, or voicing of same unless it calls for or is by itself actual harm; one cannot be harmed by seeing taboo violated; it’s required those with more than enough wealth to live well give a progressively larger portion of wealth for those who do not, try their best, & for supporting Law, infrastructure, health & education free of doctrinal taboo - with no deific guidance, it’s tough work.
The justice system is a microcosm of today's America from arrests, pre-trial investigations, indictments, plea negotiations, trials, sentencing, appeals and prison. As troubled and broken as it is, the system may well be the only branch of government not totally polluted by partisans and extremists. Most criminal proceedings conclude through plea bargaining. Juries reflect the values of their communities and for those who don't believe jury nullification exists, ask any big city prosecutor what influences their decision to seek the death penalty. The fault line is imbalance: well-funded state prosecutors versus public defenders on a bare bones budget. Justice is tied closely to the ability to hire a competent lawyer and in that regard, FD's themes resonate today. Case study: Rudy Giuliani pitted against Gerry Spence in the high profile Imelda Marcos case. Rudy lost big time after the truth was convincingly revealed to a jury.
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So true. A crime is rarely caused by just the one criminal, but so often triggered by a host of surrounding incitements. So well written and especially appreciated the insights on Dostoevsky.
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I was a Russian lit major, though it was a long time ago. Crime and Punishment was then particularly popular among those of college age. I'm not good at remembering most books I read over the years. But I read the book again not so long ago. To me,it's all about Raskonikov's descent into madness after committing murder. Despite it's name I think of it as a psychological study above all. I think that is what appeals to college readers -- the riveting descriptions of Raskolnikov going mad. The crime is the catalyst, the punishment is self-imposed. I always thought of the book as a psychological character study. I never thought of it being all that much about either crime or punishment.
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Great piece. Thank you. Wish I had read this 60+ years ago when I'd read many of his great books. Maybe time for a re-read.
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I read Crime and Punishment was I was eager to read this article figuring it's about that book, which it is, but it's not a spoiler for those who will read it. I am one fifth in the The Brothers Karamazov and Ms Wilson goes ahead and spoils it for me. Thanks!
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Great article!
Ivan, the atheist brother tormented by moral dilemmas in Brothers Karamazov, cannot abide the cruelty that humans inflict on each other. Alyosha, his monk-in-training brother, has no explicit answer to his brother's eloquent and meticulous arguments; instead, Alyosha's gracious life serves as his answer.
With regards to these articles about miscarriages of justice (see the incredible 'Blood Will Tell' in NYT the other day) I recently read a older seminal piece from the New Yorker - 'Trail by Fire' - about the execution of a man in Texas due to a case in which almost all of the evidence against him was eventually debunked. The faulty evidence eventually came to light thanks to a woman who opposed the death penalty and volunteered to join a group that exchanged letters with death row inmates. She saw the man as a fellow human, and was a rare Alyosha Karamazov sort of person!
The mind reels at how she could have been so magnanimous; Ivan Karamazov thought that Jesus's lesson of faith (in the absence of overt miracles and in the face of incomprehensible tragedy) and forgiveness was too lofty for ordinary people.
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Dostoyevsky’s politics were extremist. He was a right wing Christian fundamentalist (Russian Orthodox) and a monarchist deeply opposed to Democracy. He would make Trump look like a liberal. I don’t know any far right American writer, however talented, who is embraced by intellectuals. I’m pretty sure that, if he were living today, book reviews would talk about Dostoevsky’s alignment with Putin and his works would be panned.
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That's not at all how I remember (after 60+ years) his famous chapter in 'Brothers Karamazov' entitled 'The Grand Inquisitor' - where he elaborates his views on religion, freedom, and thought. I remember his message as being that people need to think for themselves on these topics - although thinking for themselves would be painful. (But maybe it's been too many years and I need to re-read it).
The hero of Brothers K is a Russian Orthodox priest reflecting Dostoyevsky's adulation of the church to the point that he wanted Russia to become an Orthodox state. In crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov thought for himself and went mad because of it. I have not read Brothers K for a long time, and I no longer remember the Grand Inquisitor scene. But if it lionizes individual political thought, it is contrary to Dostoyevsky's world view., which favored the primacy of religious doctrine.
You are missing the point.Try to see a convicted murderer as a human being, and your role, direct or indirect, in his or her murdering making, as these exist in the concepts collective guilt and responsibility.
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If Dostoyevsky had anticipated Netflix, that would be interesting. As for nineteenth century lit that made a case for social reform, including legal reform, while perhaps not as great a novelist, Dickens was every bit as committed to progressive notions, and his voice far more influential.
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Dickens is a thing of the past - a syndicated novelist, writing for an audience that would drop 1 or 2 pence for a newspaper carrying a hunk of novel, a practice faded down to the very rare Sunday paper occasional page length piece of enjoyable reading for pleasure.
(I’m sure it’s being done by someone I haven’t noticed beyond the bizarre concept of “fan-fic”:
An aspiring novelist with a stack of rejection letters might grab a ‘free’ web site, generate some publicity tweeting the world, buying targeted ads, and self-publishing a chapter a week, generating enough attention for an editor. Cheaper than even print-on-demand vanity publishing.
I don’t remember reading any contemporary records of Dickens, the person; but he was, at least on some level, a hack - writing quickly to deadline, writing for a broad audience with a concentration of people who, if they owned any publications beyond the family Bible, had the paper carrying the latest chapter of his work, on up to those who read several papers a day, and had stacks to choose from.
His social reform melodramas provided entertainment in something they were already buying, or were picked up by editors who thought they’d draw in some new circulation.
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Wilson: "As true crime shows continue to proliferate today, Dostoyevsky’s evolution as a crime writer could prove instructive in expanding the genre’s reformist potential."
After solving that problem, maybe D. could help reform police dramas, in which civil rights are routinely violated.
Suspects may be interrogated without being informed of their rights, threatened with violence, or actually beaten. And search warrants are rarely mentioned before police enter a residence.
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Dostoevsky was convicted for the crime of reading forbidden literature and sentenced to death, and when that sentenced was commuted, he was sent to a prison in Siberia for five years and then to compulsory military service despite the fact that he was epileptic and otherwise ill. I don't think his primary problem was a search warrant.
I don't in any way favor warrantless searches or wrongfully executed interrogation, I am only mentioning that, in the constraints of his time and place, there were much worse deeds committed legally by the authorities.
I was an English literature major in college. I was not getting what I wanted and I studied every period from late medieval to post Victorian and up to Henry James.
My college had a Russian department and they offered a course in Dostoyevsky in English translation, which I took.
Maybe it was because I had a great instructor (the chairman of the department, actually) but THAT was a course unmatched by anything the English department offered.
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Do not confuse the material you studied, and the people who taught it, with the events which transpired hundreds of years, or more, in the past. Merely because one former English major-(an almost too broad and all encompassing a major which allows one to study either everything or nothing and get away with it.) does not make one an expert on all things printed or written in English.
Having read all the offerings in any English department's offerings to possible majors, will not make anyone automatically either aware of or knowledgable about the world, English speaking or otherwise.
You may be correct in a general way. However, reading a variety of the world's great literature is much better than reading none of it. Many people benefit from the lessons of humanity, compassion, justice/injustice, and conflicts that are written in these works and carry those ideas, consciously or unconsciously, with them, even if they don't remember specifics of the works in years to come.
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Let's face it, the only figure of English literature who can hold a candle to Dostoeyevsky and Tolstoy is Shakespeare.
2
Russian literature is generally beyond my realm, but I can recall FD's novel,
CRIME & PUNISHMENT, from freshman English, and it was a page turner.
I am very vaguely recalling that gambling is involved. I apologize for not remembering enough, including that protagonist ("R?") as a fascinating character.
So what is important about C&P in the USA today imho?
Thanks to our semi libertarian SOCUS, our cultural and/our personal propensity for gambling is being legalized, which means the vice is on-shore
rather than dodged to offshore.
So prepare thyselves, and the complexities of individual State
regulations & ... on-shore dodging too is not a difficult
prophecy.
Would vices be fun if there weren't ... the elements of risk?
I don't remember anything about gambling in Crime and Punishment ( D. did write another novel called The Gambler, which I haven't read). His main example of vice in C&P is an alcoholic, Marmeladov, who drives his family into poverty and his daughter into prostitution.
In Crime and Punishment, Raskolnikov commits an existential murder in the name of an abstract idea- social justice-and in the (false) belief that it will transform him into a Nietzchean superhero. The character of Raskolnikov provided Dostoyevsky with a lens to capture the intellectual currents of his day, to tap into the pulse of 19th century Russian society, and to foresee the future violent upheavals of Russia at the hands of its revolutionary intelligentsia. These contextual factors make it difficult for me to see any significant parallels between Raskolnikov’s crime and the ones showcased in American popular crime series. Although poverty, squalor, and social anomie are conducive to crime, the individuals who commit criminal acts have different rationales, as different as the societies in which they live and breathe.
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Let’s not forget, either, that we tend to omit white collar crime when we think of crime and what is “conducive to” it.
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Dostoevsky examined crimes and criminals in Russia in the context of his time and place, similar to Netflix's true crime shows. The difference may be that he personally knew the prison system from the inside, having spent many years in prison (for reading forbidden literature (thank the gods Trump does not view literature as anything of value, or else he may get ideas)), unlike - I imagine - the creators of the current podcasts and shows.
4
I would take this notion of collective guilt and responsibility one step further. Think of the criminal justice themes pervading modern thoughts of "reform" of American public education. Reducing exits and entrances, arming teachers ("wardens"), and what will soon be separating students from each other so they cannot cause bodily harm (in "cells," no doubt). Making schools into prisons is the truest of crime.
23
In America-Criminal Justice is an industry and the people working in and around it like so many ants and bees. I recall in Bonfire of the Vanities that the people being incarcerated-or, occasionally freed, were called the "chow" of the Driminal justice machine beast. I have never read a more apt description of the what even "enlightened NYC does to and treats it's prisoners and violators of civic virtue-like smoking on subways or being imprisoned for spitting or littering on streets.
But the people there feel they do an important job-that the fabric of society would collapse if drug addicts or joint smokers were not forced to serve years in steelo and cement barracks eating the local produce of the farmers around their "penitentiaries". This is why the upstate GOP AND Democrats are never going to allow closing of slowly emptying , ever more expensive prisons: they hire too many upstate Republican voters who might make life in ALbany untenable for GOP candidates if their prisons, and associated goodies, were shut down.
2
Thanks to Ms. Wilson and the Editorial Staff of the NYT for publishing this thoughtful essay. It is always worth noting the transcendent contributions of writers like Dostoyevsky, whose sensibilities led him to interpret one of the most tumultuous times in world history through the lens of how these changes affected personal lives and fortunes.
Along with Ms. Wilson's artful allusion to Crime and Punishment as a harbinger of our own contemporary debates on justice, perhaps Dostoyevsky's allegory of the Grand Inquisitor in the Brothers Karamazov would also be timely and instructive about the calculated betrayal of public trust by the very institutions charged to protect it.
Nineteenth century United States and Imperial Russia both ushered fundamental change to their respective nations, and both countries were blessed to have brilliant writers of that period who captured what was essential and edifying about those times but often left out of the official record.
We owe Ms. Wilson a debt for also reminding us how important the gifted literary chroniclers of our own tumultuous time may be for future generations.
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What I recall most from my reading of Dostoyevsky is what Bishop Curry so eloquently stated at the Royal Wedding: the redemptive power of love. Love given without reservation. Unearned and unentitled. There are always characters in his works that demonstrate this unconditional love. And through the acceptance and benediction of redemptive love, the guilty person begins to change and rise from guilt and sin.
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I recommend that you watch the Mr. Rogers film coming this summer. At the film festival screening, you could hear many sniffles and they all came from his powerful lessons on love and the humanity of every person.
3
Evangelical so-called Christians give unconditional love to Trump. Is he showing signs of the power of redemptive love?
Is he rising from guilt and sin? In order to rise he would need to acknowledge guilt for his behavior and rhetoric. Trump is unredeemable-- proof that there is such a thing as evil in the theological sense.
4
I do not agree with separating reformers from victims sides.
By convicting the wrong person we are creating a victim and we are all guilty of that. Too often the conviction, and the sentence, depend on the location, race and even whether the defendant is physically attractive.
We create a hostile society that creates more victims on both sides, crime victims and legal system victims.
Too often victims and relatives feel angry when a conviction is overturned just because the "closure" comfot element is removed.
We should not accept that, otherwise we are perpetrators.
Thank you Jennifer for a thought provoking, interesting article.
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Actually, inaccurate convictions will become much less common in future, thanks to DNA and surveillance techniques. And mistaken convictions are already rare. You are just looking for ways to dismiss the misery and harm done to REAL victims and their families.
2
How rare? It seems to me that if they were truly rare that at least one jurisdiction would be willing to submit to one of the many audits of results and procedures that has been proposed. The fact that all have resisted with such tenacity is telling.
It's too hard to get statistics outside of a random audit. What we're getting from the Innocence Project is definitely not encouraging, but it's not a random sample. Of the 11 Mississippi death penalty cases they looked at, 7 had to be abandoned because the person they were helping died before the appeal could be finished (legally, if the case can't help someone, it is dismissed on the grounds of "it doesn't matter") and 4 were reversed because the conviction was achieved through "prosecutorial misconduct" (either suppressing evidence that would have led to a jury voting to acquit or manufacturing evidence that led to a jury voting to convict). Google Radley Balko for details and documentation.
A 36% erroneous conviction rate would be a HUGE issue if we could have any confidence that this reflected anything other than a random number. The actual number for these 11 cases could be anywhere from 36 to 100% but sampling error could make the true erroneous conviction rate pretty much anything. "Minor" cases are almost certainly different from capital cases.
Reformers focus on injustice to those wrongfully charged. Law and order types focus on the victims, especially when the bad guys get away. One side calls for fairness. The other side calls for tougher enforcement. The ideal is conviction of the criminal who committed every crime and no one else. But the system isn’t remotely close to that and getting there is impossible. So talking absolutes is futile. Both reformers and victims should talk about what’s good enough. Justice is a compromise. And the goal is good enough.
5
Justice is never compromise.
You mis-state one important thing here:
Law-n-Order types don’t want law, they want order. No messy things like protests or the truth about what happens to those found guilty of a crime.
They want to see someone “pay” for every criminal act, whether or not they’re guilty - if they’ve got enough priors, they’re guilty of something, anyway, I’ve heard ‘em say.
3
We will assume then that if you are convicted of a serious crime you will go off to prison with a shrug of your shoulders saying " I just fell into the good enough group".
2
The author should have noted that Dostoyevski's death sentence and its commutation were in the reign of Nikolai I, arch-reactionary father of Alexander II.
9
Dostoevsky had his fingers on the pulse of the human psyche in a way that has rarely been equaled. He understood and described with the shallow, the intellectual, the religious, the faithful, the impulsive, the pencil-headed, and the innocent of our society.
Above all, the most innocent are his "heroes," such as Prince Myshkin in "The Idiot" and Alexey in "The Brothers K," who are unable to comprehend the criminal and cynical actions that take place in society.
Besides all the "dark side" of humanity that Dostoevsky brilliantly captured, he wrote one of the most beautiful passages in literature, which will forever remain on my refrigerator:
"Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things... Love children especially, for they too are sinless like the angels; they live to soften and purify our hearts and, as it were, to guide us." -- "The Brothers K"
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He (Dostoyevsky) lost me and, I think I can safely say, Bill Maher at, "Love children especially . . . "
Having experienced triple bypass 7 years ago and prostate cancer 5 years ago I can sort of relate to Dostoyevsky’s zeal with which he wrote after having stared down a firing squad. If I remember right it was in that wonderful Robert Green’s 33 Strategies of War where he mentions that from the instant his sentence was commuted that he was going to stop wasting time and just focus on writing and lots of it. And I can say firsthand when a doctor tells you went code blue on the operating table or that hard walnut he just felt when he stuck his finger up your you know what is cancer you start relishing each day alive once those problems are treated.
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So, great! When Harvey Weinstein is forgiven by the media and all because--hey!--we're all complicit in his creation and--after all!--he's not really guilty, is he? Let me know how this works out. Also, this article seems to entirely forget about those who've been murdered, or raped, or beaten, or seek justice for actual victims of people who, conveniently, want to do their bad and skip along like nothing's happened.
19
Are you saying we're not all complicit in Harvey Weinstein's actions? It seems to me that he's the very embodiment of our somewhat voyeuristic need for titillation at the movies. Does that mean he should get off scot-free? No, it means we need to recognize that we are prosecuting our own voyeuristic need for titillation when we prosecute him, as well as that it would be hypocritical making him a scapegoat without changing our own behavior.
5
Why should I feel guilty for enjoying "Silver Linings" or "American Hustle? I knew nothing about his harassment of women at this point.
I appreciate the discussion of Dostoevsky and his views. A small point of missing copy correction: in America a prosecutor may make the decision to prosecute a defendant for murder, he or she may also ask for the death sentence. But actually pronouncing the sentence is reserved to the judge and/or the jury, which in some states may actually deliberate separately on the death sentence after deliberations on guilt.
9
Dostoyevsky’s notion of “collective guilt” is enlightened, at least for emotionally balanced intellectual elites who have little to do with or understanding of the material and emotional depths of desperation – or even simple depravity – that motivate horrific crimes. It doesn’t help elites to better understand the systems that humans devise to minimize the likelihood of repeated damage caused by those who commit such crimes. But such a notion will have its true expression in a human existence far removed from our own time, when general want has been addressed and all that remains is the steady weeding-out of atavistic urges.
For now, the layer of civilization that covers the lives of most human interaction is a fragile patina, beneath which lies a chaotic, extremely violent and self-interested core of existence. That does not promote widespread acceptance of “collective guilt”. Among those who wish to protect that thin patina, reliable retribution of crime is very necessary, certainly for basic emotional comfort: it’s not WE who are at collective fault, but the individual who must, for the protection of a vulnerable public, be segregated from it when not actually culled permanently from the herd.
Human systems that seek that protection, whether or not regarded by Dostoyevsky as just, are by their nature prone to error and at least occasionally UNjust. “True crime” isn’t popular for tripping the light Dostoyevsky, but for almost always punishing the individual guilty.
17
I could be wrong, but I suspect that this excellent op-ed won’t attract many comments, as its connections and its conclusions are too abstruse to excite the intellectual palates of a large number of American commenters – or even of a large number of American readers. I take the effort of a comment as a sort of homage to the crust of an editorial staff that believes that it will … or can. We must always admire crust.
22
Agree the essay will be largely overlooked. But it may come to the attention of writers or producers of these "true crime" shows. Maybe one of them will struggle through the first few pages of The Brothers Karamazov until more familiarity with the style of prose yields up its fruit. . . surely in the present darkness of our collective ignorance we should hope for such candles to be lit.
6
You may not be self-aware enough to realize this, Richard, but your comment is extremely condescending. Most people are much smarter than you think. I found this article intellectually stimulating and interesting. Dostoyevsky is one of my favorite authors.
Excellent article. It points out how longstanding are the criticisms of the imperfect legal system, wherever and whenever it is or was.
Dostoyevsky was interested in juries and juries are an important part of the system. But one of the problems to me, a lawyer, is the jury itself, meaning the people who sit on the juries. I have for a long time thought that juries should be composed of lawyers and it should be part of the responsibility of the legal profession to have members of the bar serve, from time to time, on juries.
Jury instructions are, by and large, a string of legal jargon. Many lay people, when they hear legal jargon don't understand it or become confused; they tend to ignore it like fine print in a contract. The result can be gut reaction or following what seems like a wise, honest, nice lawyer telling them what to do. Decisions are made, rightly or wrongly, for the wrong reasons. Lawyers, by and large, understand legal jargon and are less likely to be influenced by a polished performer.
Often it works out OK but, when it doesn't, many times legislation is called for to change the system in the wrong way.
There are plenty of idiots in the legal profession. But I believe it would improve the system to have people trained in the law evaluating evidence.
Also, lawyers are constantly exposed to injustice and would likely be sympathetic in appropriate cases.
I believe it would increase our chances of hitting the mark which is, equal justice under the law.
15
If the legal profession would make an effort to write legible instructions for non-lawyers (like jurors), there would be a lot fewer of those problems. Hint: Technical writers are really good at turning complex jargon into understandable instructions. If an experienced tech writer doesn't understand something, it is too complex.
2
True crime never did much for me as a genre. I'm grateful someone is covering the subject but intrinsic value seems inherently lacking. In other words, there are better ways to find the woods. I don't find true crime particularly effective.
As an author, you're trapped somewhere on a spectrum between journalistic integrity and sensationalism. Either way, the balance always seems to miss the context of the event unless the crime is uncontextualized regardless. "In Cold Blood" is a decent example here. What are you supposed to do in the event of a psychopath? Capote was factually accurate but somewhat besides the point. There was no legal failure. His mentor, Harper Lee, fared much better. However, I'm not sure you can describe "To Kill a Mocking Bird" as true crime in any literal sense. True and involving crime but not "true crime" as a genre convention. We can debate that statement if you'd like.
I dislike biographies for much the same reason. Narrowing the scope of research to a single individual is convenient for the author. However, we should be talking about why the subject is important rather than the circumstances of his or her importance. Chernow's "Hamilton" being the chief example in today's popular culture. Interesting and informative but distinctly incomplete. It's like experiencing Van Gogh as a puzzle picture where you're missing two-thirds of the pieces. We can do better.
3