The Criminal Conscience

[Seil]

So I had to look conscience up. I didn't know how to spell it. Little embarrassing truth about me, but here's another thing: Kienan Herbert. Little dude, three years old, taken after he was in bed by a guy named Randall Hoply.

TORONTO � The 46-year-old man believed to have snatched a B.C. toddler from his bedroom earlier this week has a long and troubling criminal past.

Known in the Sparwood, B.C. community as a squatter, Randall Hopley is a convicted sex offender with a history of assault and several break and enter charges.

He is the prime suspect in the widespread search for missing three-year-old Kienan Hebert, who vanished from his home on Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning.

Why is this in General instead of in news? Because I want to talk about something a little bit different. I do wanna talk about the story above, because as you can see it had a happy ending, but I want to talk about the mindset of a stereotypical criminal.

We've talked at length about pedophilia, to be sure. But there's all sorts of different types of criminal and, while I don't want to paint them all with the same brush, (crimes being judged by severity and all) I find it interesting to try to talk about all of them at once.

When I was on my family reunion a while back, we got to talking about honest versus dishonest persons, and I was of the opinion that most people are honest. Most people are good-natured, guys and dolls. The minority, the thieves and crooks take advantage of that good nature and use it to their own ends. One dishonest person in a group is just a recipe for trouble. On the flipside, you've got the the Jokers idea, that "[we're] only as good as the world allows us to be."

I'm rambling like this because with Kienan Herberts abductor, Randal Hoply - at least according to the RCMP - watches the news. Or at least is in touch with someone who does. While Kienan was missing, several pleas were made by the family and police for his return. The boy was returned unharmed on Sunday. I'm not saying this about every criminal, and I can't really say that having something like this happen is commonplace, but it's something that make me realize: criminals are people too. We can try to make the arguments against rapists, killers and thieves, we can talk about how evil they are, and how far from society's ideals they've fallen. But they are people. I'm not saying that Randal Hopley returned Kienan from the goodness of his heart, because he realized that it was wrong and that he might need help... But that's what's implied from what I read.

The idea that malicious intent is not really because the person him/herself is malicious, just... sick is interesting. The idea that a person that others would classify as "unscrupulous" or "evil" is actually trying to stay on the good side, but is pushed by outside influences, whether addiction or economic troubles... I'm sure that this is no news to some and that my rambling incoherency is already in several psych textbooks and all I have to do is look it up, but why not talk about it?

If the crime rate goes down, is it because people like Hopley are just now finding themselves reaching out for help? A murderer or a rapist fighting his urges and looking for answers in a psychiatrist? A man down on his luck because of financial issues reaching out to welfare offices, the government or friends and family? The addict heading into rehab? Is it that they've realized their behavior was wrong before, but are now taking advantage of relatively new programs and treatments offered to them? I have always been of the opinion that most people are what we view as good, with a few bad ones thrown in. It's interesting to think that everyone is striving to be good, and - to view criminal behavior like a sickness - the bad are getting better. Whether it be because they're trying to stay on the straight and narrow or because there's more help available to them.