Crime and punishment problem of mercy sleepyhead. What is mercy, crime and punishment

In my opinion, compassion is the ability to provide support, to share the sorrows and sorrows of a person in need. It helps you get through difficult moments, and sometimes even saves your life. It is important to be able to use this quality, because it contains humanity and humanism, without which a person’s life would be at risk.

Many writers have addressed this problem in their works. Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky’s novel “Crime and Punishment” was no exception.

Rodion Raskolnikov is a poor student who is dissatisfied with his position in society.

He is depressed by the inequality between rich and poor. Under pressure constant problems, Rodion is suffering. He wishes better life, therefore creates a theory that, in his opinion, gives him the right to take people's lives. He is unable to accept money from his sister, because for this Dunyasha wants to enter into a marriage of convenience. For Raskolnikov the only way out becomes a crime. The main character brutally kills an old pawnbroker and her sister Lizaveta, with an unborn child.

Let's imagine if there was a person capable of understanding and sharing the hardships of Raskolnikov's fate, would a crime be committed? I think not.

Support and compassion can remove the shackles of hopelessness from a person. Rodion needed this, but, alas, no one was able to help him before the murder.

After the crime, Raskolnikov realizes the inconsistency of his theory. Torment and remorse become worse than any punishment. It is almost impossible to live normally with such a burden on the soul. Sonechka Marmeladova, a girl with a “yellow” ticket, but with an incredibly pure, unspoiled soul, helps the hero to be reborn spiritually. She wants to help Rodion with all her heart. In the episode where Raskolnikov confesses to her that he has committed a crime, Sonya does not condemn him for his sin, but sympathizes with him and calls for national repentance. She forces the student to pray to cleanse himself before God. Recognition by the people gives Raskolnikov a chance to new life. He is relieved and ready to be punished.

Sonya saw in Rodion, first of all, a person, and only then a criminal. She really knew how to sympathize and thus saved the student.

I believe that being compassionate is being human and treating others the way you would like to be treated. And this is so important in our world.

Updated: 2015-04-06

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It's enough to think about yourself alone,
live for yourself alone, look around,
won't you see something for your worries?
more noble than your boots.
F. M. Dostoevsky “Poor People”

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky is a humanist writer, psychologist of human souls, a patriot of his homeland. Yes, yes, a patriot, and his patriotism rested on a deep faith in the spiritual strength of the people. “I don’t want a society where I couldn’t do evil, but one where I could do all sorts of evil, but didn’t want to do it myself...” the writer himself said.
All the great novels of Fyodor Mikhailovich from Crime and Punishment to The Brothers Karamazov are filled with faith, compassion and mercy.

Main goodies his novels, starting with Sonya Marmeladova and Prince Myshkin and ending with Elder Zosima and Alyosha Karamazov, preach these Christian commandments to one's neighbor, be it friend or enemy.

We see human tragedy, moral and physical death of people in the novel “Crime and Punishment.” And only one single force can change the order of things - mercy and compassion. Myself main character Raskolnikov, his family, as well as the Marmeladov family, revealed by the author with amazing depth and psychoanalysis, expect understanding and compassion from society. The poverty of these people threatens to ultimately turn into a thing that can be exchanged, sold, or simply thrown away, like throwing away an old sofa whose springs have already come out over time. Each of them needs moral support, a drop of mercy in a sea filled with tears of loneliness and sadness, a simple, but at the same time, such an important feeling of closeness of a stranger. And in cruel world In the novel we see that not all is lost; there are enough examples of not only human indifference, but also active sympathy. Rodion Raskolnikov himself helps the Marmeladov family, leaving his last money on the window, while visitors to the tavern, who heard the confession of the poor official, greet him with ridicule. A policeman helps a girl on the boulevard, but random passers-by didn’t even stop nearby (and they looked with obvious disgust and contempt, where can there be mercy?!). The repentant Svidrigailov could not look at Katerina Ivanovna’s needy children. So what is compassion? To co-suffer means to “suffer together,” and Svidrigailov’s suffering was not directed exclusively into himself. Even Lebezyatnikov cannot stand the sight of human humiliation and helps out Sonya, who was falsely accused of theft. And all these are not isolated, random scenes. We see that the feeling of mercy is inherent in a person, the relationships of almost all heroes are built on it, it determines beauty human soul, saves the world from complete collapse and is main faith to the best.

Dostoevsky himself said: “The human heart has become clouded...” - these reflections pushed him to the consciousness of a completely new image of the hero, different from everyone, not similar to those who preceded him. The image of Prince Lev Myshkin is the center of the entire novel and is truly “positively wonderful person", the embodiment of kindness, naivety and honesty. This hero, having once said, “Now I’m going to people,” was preparing himself for a certain mission and was ready to “do his job honestly and firmly” - he had to suffer, because suffering, in his opinion in my own words, “is the most important and, perhaps, the only law of existence of all mankind.” He had to pass earthly path with all people together, accept them all into your soul with all their melancholy, sins, become a brother to everyone. His activities and participation in human destinies should awaken in people the dormant desire to “do” good. He fulfilled his mission: he loved everyone and suffered for everyone. Let us remember the episode with the slap in the face from the proud Ganya Ivolgin. “Oh, how ashamed you will be of your action!” - says the hero to the man trampling his self-respect, such a person exposes himself to humiliation. Isn't this mercy? Lev Myshkin can calmly, on an equal footing, talk with a footman, not paying attention to his unequal origin and position in society; he is filled with “purity of moral feeling,” which is why his conversation is courteous, reverent and polite. The hero put aside all conventions and principles. Can't this be called mercy? The prince wants to help all people - kind words, compassion, participation, he forgives human selfishness, realizing that its causes are misunderstanding and loneliness.
With his love and suffering, the prince awakens in each of those he meets the highest, purest and noblest. He inspires people, yes, yes! people accustomed to falsehood, selfishness and cruelty, self-interest and greed are being reborn. These are the miracles that mercy can create.

Let's take the passage "Boys". Here, as in other works, the world of the human soul is revealed, in particular the theme of childhood, childhood suffering and views on the world. We hear the author's pain and despair in these lines that he is trying to convey to us, the readers. The main characters - Alyosha, Snegirev, Ilyusha, Kostya Krasotkin - undergo changes in their souls, develop, go on their own life paths. They discover joy, bright feelings, empathy, sympathy, the ability to forgive and love. Alyosha Karamazov passes the real way to compassion, mercy, kindness, the ability to appreciate not only external beauty- the shell, but also true beauty the souls of people through suffering, pain and loss. We can say that he is a ray from heaven, foreshadowing a bright future, even if he himself is a “small-grown-up” child at heart. The hero personifies peace, goodness, mercy, for example, protecting Ilya from flying stones. This man played his role in the lives of each of the boys, uniting them and guiding them on the path of goodness, justice and happiness.

Speaking of mercy, one cannot help but recall the story “Poor People,” the originality of which lies in the fact that the work consists of letters. This allows the author to expand on the topic " little man", sympathize with his grief, rejoice in his little joys. The hero of the story, Makar Devushkin, is a semi-impoverished official who lives his own inner life. His letters are the only opportunity to open up to the girl Varenka. In them he writes about his modest way of life, thoughts and inner feelings. His money is barely enough to live on, but this poor, but with big soul the man begins to help Varya, who has become a victim of social ill-being. Makar realized how difficult it must be for her to be completely alone in St. Petersburg. It turns out that the poor will help the even poorer, this is the heroism of the hero’s mercy. He cut all his expenses to the minimum in order to buy her geraniums or grapes, not thinking at all about the fact that he had taken his salary in advance and now had nothing to live on. And the hero does not at all expect any reward for good; on the contrary, he believes that the world is not perfect. In the face of this noble man Dostoevsky shows us how much beauty, pure and good lies even in the most limited human nature. Sometimes a person who has absolutely nothing himself gives this very “nothing” without a trace, knows how to compassion and love.

In depicting human suffering and injustice reigning in the world, F.M. Dostoevsky expresses his own pain and suffering. The author is looking for own ways the salvation of humanity, he longs for happiness for people humiliated and insulted by fate, he reverently and compassionately treats anyone, even the most humiliated person. This is the humanity of all his works. This is the greatness of the task that the writer set for himself: “restoration dead person, crushed unjustly by the pressure of circumstances... justification for the humiliated and rejected parties of society"

Composition.

In order not to depart from the source of this prophetic remark, let us turn to one of the wonderful creations of F. M. Dostoevsky, “The Idiot.”
The main character of the novel, Prince Lev Nikolaevich Myshkin, is an example of Christian consciousness in the author’s view. He is infinitely kind, all-forgiving, and has a keen understanding of human souls. However, the world surrounding the hero is far from ideal. Myshkin fails to either save Nastasya Filippovna from death, or protect Rogozhin from committing a crime, or keep Aglaya from taking a rash step. However, Myshkin himself also cannot stand the weight of the world and his hidden guilt before these people. Ironically calling his hero an idiot, while the novel was conceived “about a positively wonderful person,” the author describes in detail social environment, which the character falls into. His heroes are all one and the same - sinners overwhelmed by passions, who, according to Aglaya, are not worth lifting Prince Myshkin’s handkerchief - not being able to understand their own sins and passions, they are drawn to him as to light. He is pure at heart. He consoles everyone who simply tells him that they want to repent. His attitude towards Nastasya Filippovna is determined at the moment when he sees her portrait: “Oh, if only it were good! Everything would have been saved,” but, realizing that she is not kind, but on the contrary, under the feeling of her grave guilt, she herself is ready to mock the right and wrong, he decides for himself that she is insane. She is not crazy, but rather possessed, and in order to heal her, Christ is really needed, and Myshkin, with all his kindness and purity, does not have firmness in the fight against evil, in renouncing the evil one. He does not see evil in the world, for him all people are good, all are unhappy and all suffer. Dostoevsky thinks differently. He places his hero in a world of squabbles, strife and sins. Myshkin manages with his selflessness to return partly to the path of truth, albeit short term, Ganya Ivolgina, but this act as a whole is not justified.
Essentially, compassion is manifested when a person forgets about his immediate, selfish interests and gives all he can to his neighbor in need. If a person is capable of such an act, it means that he is sure that nothing will happen to him, he will not suffer, because the Lord is protecting him, and the one who is in need really needs help, because he has turned away from God and does not believe in his help . For Dostoevsky, compassion is inextricably linked with faith, and what can save the soul if not faith. Thus, the selfish man retreats before the spiritual man. The body suffers, but the soul belongs to God, and therefore the writer sees the source of mental torment in spiritual blindness, in the inability to find divine providence in the events of life. This inability comes from human cowardice, lack of true faith, fear for something vain, at a time when the soul is tormented and suffering, not finding true light in the darkness. Compassion, the ability to feel with one’s soul and partly take upon oneself the suffering of another person, his mental anguish, and thereby renounce one’s own egoism, at least for a short moment, show strength human spirit, what if it is not the spiritual organization that determines the meaning human existence. Thus, Prince Myshkin represents the embodied meaning of the writer’s spiritual quest. Another question is that the environment is pretentiously ugly and what they want from him is not Christian love at all, but this is in the writer’s understanding grave sin. Dostoevsky had the right ideas about the spiritual essence, but the main conflict of the work is in the desire to be clean and dirty environment, which in turn deprives the heroes of faith in their strength to change something. They cannot correct their lives, but they can remain human in this environment - forgive, love, and have compassion. This is what the writer defines as the meaning of human existence. The awakening of the spiritual essence is a major breakthrough for its heroes. When this awakening occurs, a person remembers his purpose, the meaning of his existence, the actions he has previously committed in a darkened consciousness are justified. He justifies both Raskolnikov and Rogozhin. Suffering formally atones for guilt, while compassion and the discovery of the spiritual essence elevate a person to new round development. He won't be the same anymore. He who knows compassion renounces evil, his life is filled with love, light and grace. This is exactly what Myshkin wants. So that people remember their conscience, pray for their neighbors, and feel sorry for their enemies. And even though he didn’t achieve much, he didn’t live in vain. Returned from madness to the world of the darkened by reason, he was forced to drink his cup of suffering. The connection between suffering and madness is visible, for only the insane, having turned away from God, begin to suffer, and those who remain with God experience grace and understanding of divine providence, and not suffering. Pure intention Prince Myshkin's help to people obviously justifies his existence, since his compassion for them heals souls and bestows strength from God.

Crime and Punishment

The death penalty confirms the inhuman attitude of people towards each other. It indicates that man still lives in the era of barbarians. Civilization remains only an idea that has not been embodied in life.

We need to consider this phenomenon with different sides to understand why many cultures and peoples still continue to use such an idiotic punishment as the death penalty. Even in those countries where it was once abolished, they returned to it again. In other countries it has been replaced by life imprisonment - which is even worse. It is better to die in one second than to die slowly over fifty or sixty years. Replacement death penalty life imprisonment will not lead to civilization, but will plunge into even greater barbarism, inhuman darkness and unconsciousness.

First, it is necessary to understand that the death penalty is not really a punishment. If you cannot give life as a reward, you cannot give death as a punishment. Everything is simple and logical. If you are not able to give people life, what right do you have to take it away?

I remembered one story from real life. Two criminals found a treasure that was hidden in the castle. Many times different people they tried to break into the castle and steal it, but they were caught. The attempt of these two criminals was somehow crowned with success. The treasure was enormous, and one of the thieves decided not to share it with the other. He could kill his partner, but in this case he might be caught. He could not risk it with such a treasure in his hands.

A clever idea came to his mind. He disappeared and spread the rumor that he had been killed, planting evidence that his friend was the killer. A friend was arrested - they found a revolver with two bullets missing, and his fingerprints were on it. In addition, a handkerchief with his initials was found at the “crime scene”... He could not prove his innocence - everything testified against him, and he was sentenced to death. But he himself knew that he did not kill his friend, and was sure that it was all a set-up. His friend was alive and set him up to take all the treasures for himself.

The condemned man managed to escape from prison. Twelve years later, when he heard that his former partner - who had changed his name and become a respected politician - had died, he went to court and told the judge: “I am the man you sentenced to death twelve years ago, but I escaped.” from prison. I was completely innocent, but I had no proof."

In fact, innocence never has proof. There is evidence of a crime, but innocence cannot be proven. “The man you accused me of killing just died, so I couldn’t have killed him twelve years ago. The only crime I committed was escaping from prison. But can this be called a crime? When you sentence an innocent person to death, which of us is the criminal - you or me?

There is subtext to this story. The man asked the judge, “If I were sentenced to death, couldn't escape, and was executed, what would you do now? If it were known that the person thought to have been killed was alive, could you give me my life back? If you cannot give my life back, what right do you have to take it away?”

It is said that after these words the judge resigned and apologized to the man and said: “I must have committed many crimes in my life.”

Around the world, the reality is that if you cannot prove your innocence, you are guilty. This contradicts all humanistic ideals, democracy, freedom, respect for the individual. The law says that until proven guilty, you are innocent - that's what they say - but in reality it's the other way around.

A person says one thing and does the exact opposite. He talks about civilization, culture, but he himself is uncivilized and uncultured. The death penalty is sufficient proof of this.

This is the law of barbaric society: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. If someone cuts off your hand, then in a barbaric society, according to the law, his hand should also be cut off. This law has been in effect for many centuries, the death penalty is an example of this: “An eye for an eye. If one person is believed to have killed another, then he should also be killed.” But this is strange: if murder is a crime, then how can we justify a society that commits this crime again and again. One person was killed, now two are killed. And there is no absolute certainty that this person killed another, since it is not so easy to prove murder.

If murder is a crime, then it does not matter who commits it - an individual or society and its courts.

Murder is, of course, a crime. The death penalty is a crime committed by society against a helpless individual. This is not a punishment - this is a crime.

You can understand why it is being done - it is revenge. Society takes revenge on a person for not obeying its laws. Society is ready to kill him - no one cares that if he committed murder, it means he is mentally ill. Instead of imprisoning him or executing him, he should be sent to an institution where he can receive physical, psychological and spiritual help.

Yes, it's true: one person was killed. But we can't do anything about it. Do you think that if you kill the one who committed the murder, his victim will be resurrected? If it were possible, I would be entirely in favor of eliminating the killer - he does not deserve to be part of society - and his victim should return to life. But that doesn't happen. A person dies and cannot be revived. The only thing that can be done is to kill his killer. This is an attempt to wash away blood with blood, dirt with dirt.

You have no idea what happened in human history. Three hundred years ago, many cultures believed that the insane were faking it. In other cultures they were believed to be possessed by demons. In third cultures they were indeed mistaken for madmen, but they believed that they could be cured by punishment. This is how they cared for the mentally ill.

They were treated by beating - a strange treatment! - and bloodletting. Now they perform blood transfusions, but before they did the opposite: they gave blood to a person, believing that he had too much energy. Naturally, after the bloodletting, the person became weak, showing signs of weakness due to the fact that he had lost so much blood, and he was believed to be cured of madness.

As a result of the beating, it happened that the insane person came to his senses. If a person is sleeping and you start beating him, he will wake up. A madman is unconscious; if you beat him hard, he can sometimes return to consciousness. This was confirmation that beating was an appropriate treatment method. But healing occurred extremely rarely; in ninety-nine percent of cases the poor mentally ill were needlessly tortured. But the exception has become the rule.

If the mentally ill were believed to be possessed by demons, evil spirits, then beatings were also used, because they thought that it was a demon, not a person, who was being beaten. The blows are supposedly applied not to the human body, but to the demons that have possessed the person, and contribute to their expulsion. Sometimes a person came to his senses - but extremely rarely, in less than one percent of cases.

I was in an institution known for treating the mentally ill. There were several hundred patients there. It was a temple on the banks of a river, and the priest of this temple had probably been a butcher for at least a hundred lifetimes. He looked like a butcher and beat everyone hard. The mentally ill were chained, beaten mercilessly, starved, and given strong laxatives. And I saw that sometimes the patient came to his senses. Strong laxatives and hunger cleansed his body for several days. The beatings brought me to consciousness. Lack of food, hunger - a hungry person cannot afford to be crazy because of the terrible torment of the body. To go crazy, life must be more or less prosperous.

Look: the more prosperous and richer the society, the more people are going crazy. The poorer the society, the more it suffers from poverty and hunger, the less people lose their minds. Madness requires, first of all, the presence of mind. But a hungry man has nothing to feed his mind. He is malnourished and unable to go crazy. Because the mind requires more energy than usual to survive. Madness is a disease of the rich. The poor cannot afford it.

So, if you make a person fast and give him a laxative, his body will be cleansed and hunger will force him to think only about the body. He will forget about the mind, the main concern will be the body. He will no longer care about the mind and its games.

Madness is a game of the mind.

So, sometimes I saw people healed in this temple, but because of only one percent of cases of successful healing, word spread about the effectiveness of the treatment, and hundreds of mentally ill people began to be brought there. The temple flourished. I have been there many times, but only once have I seen a cured patient; others returned home beaten and hungry - even sicker and weaker. Many could not bear such “treatment” and died.

However, in India, death as a result of treatment administered by a priest in a temple is not a crime, in fact, it is happiness to die in a sacred place. You will be reborn for more high level consciousness. So this is not a crime, and all over the world priests treated people In a similar way for many centuries.

We now know that the mentally ill cannot be treated in this way. They were put in prisons, in solitary confinement. This is still happening all over the world because we don't know what to do with them. To hide our ignorance, we put the mentally ill in prison and forget about them; at least we can continue to ignore the fact of their existence.

In my hometown My friends uncle has gone crazy. They were rich people. I often visited them, but only several years later I learned that my uncle was chained and kept in the basement.

I asked:

Because he's crazy. There were only two options: we chain him up and keep him in the house... Of course, we couldn't keep him upstairs - that would cause disturbance to our guests. And it would be terrible if the children and wife saw their father and husband in such a state. The second option is to send him to prison, but in this case our family's reputation would suffer. So we decided to lock him in the basement. A servant brings him food, and no one sees him anymore, no one visits him.

I'd like to see your uncle.

“But I can’t go with you,” the friend replied. - He's dangerous, he's crazy! Even though he is in chains, he can do something.

The worst thing he can do is kill me. Stay behind me - if he attacks me, you can run away. But I still want to go to him.

I insisted, and my friend took the key from the servant who was delivering food to my uncle. In thirty years I was the first person from the outside world, other than the servant, to see him. Perhaps he was once crazy - I don’t know - but when I saw him he was healthy. However, no one wanted to listen to him, because all mentally ill people say that they are not sick. Therefore, when he told the servant: “Go and tell my family that I am not crazy,” he just laughed. In the end, the servant still conveyed these words to the family, but no one paid any attention to them.

Arriving at my uncle, I sat down next to him and spoke. He turned out to be as sane as everyone else - even, perhaps, a little more sane, because he said to me:

Thirty years of imprisonment is an amazing experience. In fact, I think I'm lucky to be isolated from your crazy world. They think I'm crazy - there's no harm in that - but in fact I'm happy that I'm here and not in your crazy world. And what do you think?

“You’re absolutely right,” I replied. - The world outside has become even crazier than it was when you left it thirty years ago. In thirty years there has been great progress in everything - including madness. You should stop saying you're not crazy or you might be released! You wonderful Life. There is enough space to walk...

This is the only thing physical exercise, which I can do here. I started teaching him Vipassana:

You are in ideal conditions to achieve enlightenment: no one and nothing bothers you, bothers you or distracts you. This is bliss.

The last time I saw him before his death, I noticed from his face and eyes that he had become a different person - a total transformation had happened to him.

To get out of the state of madness, mentally ill people need meditation. Criminals need psychological assistance and spiritual support. They are really seriously ill, you punish sick people. But it's not their fault. If a person commits murder, it means that he for a long time carried within himself a tendency to kill. The murder doesn't happen out of the blue.

If a murder is committed, it is necessary to look carefully at society, perhaps this society should be punished. Why do such crimes occur in this society? What did it do to a person that he had to become a killer? Why did he become a destroyer? After all, nature gives everyone energy aimed at creation. It only becomes destructive when it is blocked, when it is not allowed to flow naturally. When the energy goes naturally, society begins to create obstacles for her, cause damage, and direct her in a different direction. Soon the person becomes confused. He can't understand anything. He doesn't understand what he is doing and why he is doing it. The original reasons are forgotten, the whole life has turned into a puzzle.

No one needs the death penalty, no one deserves it. Moreover, not only the death penalty, but also other punishments are unacceptable, since punishment does not correct a person. Every day the number of criminals increases, more and more prisons are built. This is weird. It should not be. It should be the other way around: thanks to numerous courts, penalties and prisons, crime should be reduced, there should be fewer criminals. Over time, the number of prisons and courts should decrease. But this doesn't happen.

Because the very course of your reasoning is incorrect. It is impossible to teach anything through punishment. For centuries, lawyers, jurists and politicians have said: “If we don’t punish people, then how will we teach them? Then everyone will start committing crimes. We must constantly punish criminals so that everyone is afraid.” They think fear is the only way teach people to be law-abiding, but fear cannot teach anything! All punishment can do is teach fear, causing the initial shock to disappear. People know what they are facing: “All you can do to me is beat me up. If one person can take it, so can I. In addition, out of a hundred thieves, you only manage to catch two or three. And what kind of man am I if I’m not willing to take such a risk - ninety-eight percent success versus two percent failure?”

No one can learn anything through punishment. Even the one you punish does not learn what you want to teach him. Although he does learn something - he learns to be thick-skinned.

As soon as a person goes to prison, it becomes his home, because in it he finds others like himself. He finds a suitable society for himself. In the outside world he was a stranger - in prison he was at home. Here everyone speaks the same language, and there are specialists. He may be an amateur, a novice; This may be his first term.

I heard one joke about a man who goes to prison and sees an old man lying in a dark cell. The old man asks him:

How long have you been here? “For ten years,” the newcomer answers.

“Then sit by the door,” the old man tells him. - Just for ten years! You seem to be a newbie. I've been here for fifty years, so your place is at the door. You should be leaving soon.

Being around specialists for ten years, you naturally learn all their techniques, strategies and methods. You learn from their experience. Prisons are universities where they teach crime at the expense of the state. There you will find delinquency professors, deans of delinquency, provosts and provosts - specialists in every crime you can imagine. A beginner, of course, begins to learn.

I have been to many prisons and the atmosphere is essentially the same everywhere. General opinion In all the prisons I have visited, it is this: you go to prison not because of the crime, but because you were caught. Therefore, you need to learn how to correctly do not doing the right thing. The question is not doing the right thing, but doing it right. And in prison all prisoners are taught this. I even talked to them and they told me, “We're trying to get out of here as soon as possible because we've learned so much that we can't wait to put it into practice. We lacked practical knowledge - before we came here, we were theoreticians. To become a practitioner, you need to go to prison.”

Once a person becomes a criminal, he will never feel as good anywhere as in prison, sooner or later he returns there. Over time, prison becomes his alternative society. Here he feels more comfortable, here he feels at home; no one looks down on him. Everyone here is a criminal. There are no priests, sages or saints here. Everyone here is pathetic little people with their own weaknesses and shortcomings.

In the outside world he is rejected and condemned.

There was a hardened criminal in my town. He was a wonderful man; his name was Barkat Mian, he spent nine months a year in prison, three in freedom. During these three months, he had to appear at the police station every week and report that everything was in order and he had not run away. I was friends with this man. My family was terribly unhappy.

Why are you hanging out with this Barkat? - they asked me. - Whoever you hang out with, that's how you'll gain.

When will you start looking at life soberly?

I just look at life soberly. It’s not Barkat who will make me worse, but I will make Barkat better. Or do you think that his evil is stronger than my good? You don't trust my integrity; “You believe in the integrity of Barkat,” I replied. - No matter what you think, I trust myself. Barkat cannot harm me. If any harm is caused, it will be by me - to Barkat.

Barkat was a really wonderful person, he told me: “You shouldn’t be seen with me. If you want to meet and talk, it’s better to do it outside the city, somewhere by the river.”

He himself lived near Muslim cemetery, where no one came until he died - he came, but only once. He was not allowed to live in the city. No one in the city wanted to rent him housing. And no matter how much he was willing to pay, no one wanted to mess with him. Nobody wanted to let him in. "How did you become a thief?" - I once asked Barkat. “When I was first sent to prison, I was completely innocent, but I didn’t have the money to hire a lawyer, and the people who wanted to put me in prison benefited from my imprisonment. My father and mother died when I was only fourteen or fifteen years old. The rest of the relatives wanted to appropriate all our family property - the house, the land - but I stopped them. They found a simple solution to the problem. They put something in a bag that was in my house. The stolen item was found in my bag and I was put in prison. When I was released, my land and house were sold, my relatives managed to divide and sell all my property. I found myself on the street.

So when I first went to prison I was innocent, but when I came out my innocence was irretrievably lost because I had gone through good school. In prison, I told everyone what happened to me - I was only seventeen - and they told me: “Don’t worry, nine months will fly by quickly, but during this period we will polish you so that you can take revenge on them all.”

First, I decided to take revenge on all my relatives - tit for tat. They forced me to become a thief, and I wanted to prove that I had become a real thief. I hunted them down and stole everything they had. Gradually I got involved and this thing became more and more important. Ten times you can get away with it, but on the eleventh you can get caught. And the older and more experienced you become, the less often you get caught. But now this is not a problem; in fact, prison is a very calm place, where I take a break from work and other worries. Spending several months in prison is good for your health - a clear daily routine: getting up, working, sleeping - all at the same time. And decent food.

In prison I never get sick, only sometimes I pretend to be in a hospital bed. I get sick in freedom, but never in prison. Will is a foreign world to me; everyone here looks down on me. Only in prison do I have a feeling of freedom.”

Strange! When he said this, I asked again: “Are you saying that in prison you feel free?” - “Yes, only in prison do I feel free.”

What kind of society is this in which people feel free in prison and feel like prisoners when they are free?

And this is the story of almost every criminal. It all starts with little things - he may have been hungry or cold, had nothing to cover himself with and stole a blanket - with the satisfaction of simple needs. Society should not produce poor and hungry people. Nobody asks him to do this. However, it continues to produce more and more people, and material goods There is not enough for everyone - no food, no clothing, no shelter. What does it expect? Society itself puts people in a position in which they are forced to become criminals.

The world population must be reduced by a factor of three if you want crime to disappear.

But no one wants crime to disappear, otherwise judges, lawyers, jurists, parliaments, police, jailers will disappear with it. There will be a big problem of unemployment; no one wants anything to change for the better.

Everyone talks about the need to improve society, but continues to contribute to its deterioration, because the worse life is, the more people are employed. Than life the worse you are more likely to be happy with yourself. Criminals are needed so that you can feel like highly moral and respectable people. Sinners are needed by saints so that they can feel that they are saints. Who would be a saint without sinners? If all society consisted only of good people Do you think it would have remembered Jesus Christ for two thousand years? For what? It is the society of criminals that preserves the memory of Jesus Christ.

One thing you need to understand simple thing. Why do you remember Gautam Buddha? If there were millions of Buddhas, millions of awakened people in the world, you would not pay any attention to them. How would Gautama Buddha stand out among them? He would blend in with the crowd. But twenty-five centuries have passed, and it still rises - like a column, like Mountain peak- over your heads.

In fact, Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Mahavira are not giants, you are the pygmies. And every giant is interested in you remaining pygmies, otherwise he cannot be a giant. This is a great conspiracy.

I am against this conspiracy. I am neither a giant nor a pygmy; I do not pursue the interests of either one or the other. I am who I am. I don’t compare myself to anyone, so no one is higher or lower than me. Thanks to this, I see the world as it really is; personal gain does not distort my vision. And here is my direct answer to the question about the death penalty: it once again proves that man is still far from civilization, culture and knowledge of human values.

There are no criminals in this world and never have been. Yes, there are people who need compassion, but not imprisonment and punishment. All prisons should be rebuilt into psychological centers.