A Dangerous Trend: The Injustice of Early Release

Forty families of victims killed in the 1988 terrorist attack on Pan Am Flight 103 stood in protest outside the United Nations headquarters on a balmy September day. They expressed anger and disbelief that the Scottish government a month earlier released from prison Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the lone man convicted in the plot that blew a commercial airliner out of the sky over Scotland, killing 270 people. Sentenced in 2001 to a minimum of 27 years in prison, the Scottish government released him as a compassionate gesture after he became terminally ill with prostate cancer. Adding insult to injury, he received a hero’s welcome from his native Libya and its leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who spoke at the UN the day of the protests. Many believe Gaddafi supported the bombing.

Glenn P. Johnson, whose 21-year-old daughter was killed on flight 103, said the release “reinjured and re-victimised” the families.¹ Caroline Ammerman, whose husband Tom also died on the flight, was too upset to speak. Instead she held a placard that expressed her feelings: “Megrahi is free. Gaddafi’s at the UN. They killed 270.”² Frank Duggan, president of the Victims of Pan Am 103 organization, added, “The Scots broke our hearts. We never thought they would release al-Megrahi.”³ Despite the outcry, the Scottish government refused to investigate whether the medical release was morally appropriate.⁴

But Scotland’s is not the only government to consider early release for prisoners in recent days. New York’s state legislature passed a law in 2009 permitting the release of prisoners deemed incapable of harming anyone because of a mental or physical disability. The policy, intended to cut expenses in an already strapped state budget, qualified murderers, rapists, and child molesters for release. It excluded only those who killed a law enforcement official.⁵ And the first inmates to apply for release were guilty of heinous crimes. Gregory Felder, for instance, masterminded a 2004 electronics store robbery during which an accomplice shot and killed a clerk who was partly paralyzed and blind in one eye. Sentenced to 25 years to life, he sought release after five.

Sergio Black similarly sought release after four years of a ten-year sentence for brutally raping a pregnant woman.⁶ The New York Daily News dubbed the policy “Khadafy’s Law”⁷ and pinpointed the problem: “It is based on the grotesque idea that it’s okay to spring inmates who are no longer dangerous in order to achieve budget savings. Missing from the equation is the vital function of prison: punishment, even if that means dying behind bars.”⁸ One victim’s mother reacted to the potential release of her son’s killer much like the flight 103 families. “I can’t believe this law is on the books,” she said.⁹

While some say early release for heinous criminals is humanitarian kindness, Scripture charges governments with punishing wrongdoers according to biblical principles of retribution and just desert.¹⁰ Though parole and other forms of clemency may be appropriate in certain circumstances, governments that ignore justice for the sake of monetary savings or international diplomacy (or trivialize punishment in the name of compassion) shun a biblical worldview. In the end the Daily News was right: “Releasing a murderer because he is sick defeats the purpose of a life sentence.”¹¹

Footnotes:

A Dangerous Trend: The Injustice of Early Release

Forty families of victims killed in the 1988 terrorist attack on Pan Am Flight 103 stood in protest outside the United Nations headquarters on a balmy September day. They expressed anger and disbelief that the Scottish government a month earlier released from prison Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the lone man convicted in the plot that blew a commercial airliner out of the sky over Scotland, killing 270 people. Sentenced in 2001 to a minimum of 27 years in prison, the Scottish government released him as a compassionate gesture after he became terminally ill with prostate cancer. Adding insult to injury, he received a hero’s welcome from his native Libya and its leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, who spoke at the UN the day of the protests. Many believe Gaddafi supported the bombing.

Glenn P. Johnson, whose 21-year-old daughter was killed on flight 103, said the release “reinjured and re-victimised” the families.¹ Caroline Ammerman, whose husband Tom also died on the flight, was too upset to speak. Instead she held a placard that expressed her feelings: “Megrahi is free. Gaddafi’s at the UN. They killed 270.”² Frank Duggan, president of the Victims of Pan Am 103 organization, added, “The Scots broke our hearts. We never thought they would release al-Megrahi.”³ Despite the outcry, the Scottish government refused to investigate whether the medical release was morally appropriate.⁴

But Scotland’s is not the only government to consider early release for prisoners in recent days. New York’s state legislature passed a law in 2009 permitting the release of prisoners deemed incapable of harming anyone because of a mental or physical disability. The policy, intended to cut expenses in an already strapped state budget, qualified murderers, rapists, and child molesters for release. It excluded only those who killed a law enforcement official.⁵ And the first inmates to apply for release were guilty of heinous crimes. Gregory Felder, for instance, masterminded a 2004 electronics store robbery during which an accomplice shot and killed a clerk who was partly paralyzed and blind in one eye. Sentenced to 25 years to life, he sought release after five.

Sergio Black similarly sought release after four years of a ten-year sentence for brutally raping a pregnant woman.⁶ The New York Daily News dubbed the policy “Khadafy’s Law”⁷ and pinpointed the problem: “It is based on the grotesque idea that it’s okay to spring inmates who are no longer dangerous in order to achieve budget savings. Missing from the equation is the vital function of prison: punishment, even if that means dying behind bars.”⁸ One victim’s mother reacted to the potential release of her son’s killer much like the flight 103 families. “I can’t believe this law is on the books,” she said.⁹

While some say early release for heinous criminals is humanitarian kindness, Scripture charges governments with punishing wrongdoers according to biblical principles of retribution and just desert.¹⁰ Though parole and other forms of clemency may be appropriate in certain circumstances, governments that ignore justice for the sake of monetary savings or international diplomacy (or trivialize punishment in the name of compassion) shun a biblical worldview. In the end the Daily News was right: “Releasing a murderer because he is sick defeats the purpose of a life sentence.”¹¹

Footnotes: