Reading recently about prison rates in the United States I got to thinking about crime and punishment. Why is it exactly that we put people in prison? I’m not even going to talk about capital punishment, which is a ridiculous vestige from a barbaric past.

As far as I can tell there are four reasons why we put people in prison. First, we believe suffering is a deterrent for that individual committing the crime again once they get out of prison. Second, the specter of imprisonment is also a deterrent to others who might commit that crime. Third, we want to protect society from harm by taking the perpetrator out of circulation, which prevents them from doing it again to someone else. Lastly, imprisoning someone fulfills an inner need for justice. We believe this someone has to pay for their crime.

Reviewing the four reasons I believe that they can all be boiled down to spiritual problems either in the perpetrator or in the people wanting to the punishment to happen.

The belief that suffering is the only deterrent to someone committing a crime again is an admission that we don’t believe that someone can be otherwise rehabilitated. If instead we focused on methods of improving a person’s self-esteem, improving their standard of living (if in poverty), and changing their motivations we could (at least sometimes) create a spiritual state that would keep them from committing a crime in the future.

The idea that people in society need the specter of punishment to do the right thing seems to me like an outmoded “carrot and stick” belief system. What if people did things because they knew internally that it was right? What if people didn’t do things because they knew internally and had a strong sense that something was wrong? The very fact that there are so many people in prison who were willing to risk punishment shows that this idea of punishment as a deterrent to others is not working.

On the face of it, the need to protect society from harm seems like a legitimate reason for incarceration. However, prison terms for even violent offenders aren’t forever. What if the person didn’t “learn their lesson” in prison? When they’re finally released on good behavior or at the end of their normal sentence, they could go out and do it again. So without a belief that rehabilitation is reasonably possible, the only logical course would be to imprison all violent offenders for their entire life. This is something even our punishment-bent society does not do.

But let’s say that we can rehabilitate. In this case no matter how violent the offense we should be able to change the perpetrators spiritual maturity so that they have no desire to commit further crime. In the case of severe mental illness, where rehabilitation doesn’t seem practical, the person doesn’t belong in prison anyway. The best place for them would be a psychiatric care facility. Unfortunately a lot of people like this are currently in the prison system, because it’s the less expensive way to take care of them and to get them out of everyone’s way.

So what about the need for justice? I can’t help but think that justice is another word for retribution. Or another word for revenge. Deep down, we probably feel that when something bad happens to us we need to make the world right. We feel out of control, we feel like something that we couldn’t control has happened to us. Perhaps by demanding and getting justice we allow ourselves to feel once again that life is within our control. It eases the horrible fear that random things can happen to us that we can do nothing about. This doesn’t seem to be the perpetrator’s fault, however.

Taking the spiritual perspective further, what about forgiveness? Rumi said forgiveness is the fragrance left on the foot that crushes the flower. Perhaps a more mature spiritual perspectives reflected in the criminal justice system would allow the concept of forgiveness to replace the concept of justice. We could perhaps even feel a little better about it if we knew that our society was set up to spiritually rehabilitate criminals rather than exact retribution from them.

That sort of spiritual and emotional rehabilitation would require much deeper look into why people commit crimes. Some emotional models suggest that all negative emotional experiences reduce to a desire for approval, a desire for control, or a desire for security. If we look at crime through this lens we can see that there are a lot of reasons people would commit crimes that boil down to these three emotions.

For example, young troubled teens could easily commit crimes even violent ones, because they want the approval of their peers. If they could be taught instead to trust their inner moral compass, which we all have, then they can leave behind the weight of wanting approval and instead seek their own inner approval. This might help them to make better decisions.

Approval can be seen in another hypothetical case. A man who wants the love and approval of his wife could embezzle funds at his business in order to continue to provide a lifestyle that he would otherwise not be able to provide.

The world has a long history of petty theft and other financial crimes being committed because the person was concerned about their own physical survival. Stealing food or stealing money to buy food are legitimate security and safety motivations for certain crimes. If we did a better job of providing for the needy among us, if we did a better job of helping the needy educate their children in a better way, then this sort of crime would happen much less frequently.

Drug possession is another matter entirely. People taking drugs either are doing it to fit in with their group of friends, are doing it to have some control over the feelings they have in their environment, or they’re just trying to feel good. I don’t believe this should be even included in the category of criminal activity, and I think it’s a horrible shame that so many people are incarcerated in our country for minor drug possession. It’s an incredible waste of money and life.

So, if we spend more energy on ourselves changing our relationship to how we feel about so called criminals, and we are able to provide a better spiritual education for all people, and more specifically rehabilitative spiritual education for criminals, the entire criminal justice system can be changed to a more positive looking one. The way we view crime and punishment is archaic way, that needs to change if we want to move beyond our puritanical roots.