The Wire and Philosophy: Part Four
Sympathy for the Devil
Given these descriptive facts of the criminal, might something prescriptive emerge, namely, ought we have a certain level of sympathy for these devils? Must our relationship to the criminal become more empathic and understanding? Should something be done in terms of reevaluating not only the underlying assumptions that inform our theories and practices of punishment, which deal with crime after the fact, but also those factors that led to the crime: economic inequality, de facto segregation, racism, broken and failed institutions?