Personal Journal 1 Mar. 8~14

What I learned from "American Crime Stories"

This winter vacation I read some intriguing readers. “American Crime Stories” was one of them. (Why I chose this book was partly because I learned about some basic criminal psychology during last semester.) This reader talked about seven different types of crimes. In the stories, the commission of each wrongdoing had its own cause and I was inspired by them. When it comes to the word “crime”, many people may think about something negative. People seldom commiserate with culprits. They may think it is the person who commits the offense should take the blame. He or she should be behind the bar and get it in the neck. However, it’s not always so. There are countless reasons for committing crimes. So we can’t have preconceived opinions before knowing the truth in depth.

Take one story in “American Crime Stories” for example. The first story is “The Heroin”. It talked about a girl named Lucille whose mother was a psychotic. The girl accompanied her mother for many years, waiting for her to recover. But until her mother died she had never become sane. The girl suffered a great loss and she was afraid she could not fit in the society. Trying to forget the terrible memory, she left the city to start her new life. Later she found a job as a governess. She thought she ought to take good care of the two kids and win the hearts of the family. But as time went by, the thought of winning the trust of the family grew terribly strong. It was not enough to just read fairytales to the kids or bathe them. Money she earned meant nothing to her either. She was eager for something dangerous to happen so that she could win honor for saving them. She had to prove herself in a crisis! Hence, she poured gasoline around the house, lit the match, and walked aside, waiting for the fire to grow tall. The ending was self-evident. After finishing the story, I felt sympathetic towards her. I didn’t think she was culpable of punishment. It was the unpleasant past that caused her to behave strangely.

In sum, I think it’s important that look at a crime from various angles. We are neither the person involved, nor the criminal who commit the crime. So we can’t tell what exactly the cause is for him or her to do the terrible thing. If we can try to stand in their shoes, perhaps we may realize some further and complicated stories between the criminal and the victim. Thus, we may be able to judge an event from a different point of view and observe what’s happening around us in a more objective way.