Frozen River

So instead seeing of Hair last night, I ended up going to Frozen River, an indie film about two women who smuggle illegal immigrants into the U.S. from Canada via a river on the border. It was suspenseful, thought-provoking, and somewhat hopeful at the end (although, like all good indie films, it did not wrap up into a neat conclusion). I reccommend seeing it.

One element I thought was most interesting was the comparison of the Native American and United States justice systems. The smugglers, both single mothers seeking desperately to provide for their families, represent an unlikely collision of two worlds: the Mohawk reservation and rural White New York.

Although the women are at first reluctant to work together, in the end they become interdependent and other members of their worlds begin to interact. At the end of the movie, a member of the Mohawk Tribal Council, which confronts crime on the Reservation, meets with the White woman's son, who deceived an elderly Mohawk woman to steal her credit card number. Instead of punishing him (as the U.S. justice system would do, with jail or some sort of fine), the council member acknowledged the teen's circumstances and provided the opportunity for him to meet the woman he had wronged and apologize.

This approach seems to have the same ideological underpinnings as the Restorative Justice model my friend Katherine recently introduced me to.

Behaviorist B.F. Skinner emphasizes that punishment is not the most effective way to change behavior. If that is the case, why do we favor punishment so much in our homes and court systems? Skinner proposes that punishment is rewarding to the punisher.

Retribution may be sweet, but in the end it does not satisfy, and it will not improve society.