Introduction
The novel “Through the Glass” by Shannon Moroney eloquently illustrates the disparities between classifications of victims, the failures of the penal justice system, and how restorative justice is healing and, therefore, a superior approach for those involved when each fulfills their role. Shannon Moroney is a woman who married a dangerous offender (classified by the criminal justice system of Canada) during his reintegration into society following the murder of the 2nd degree. Shortly after their wedding, he reoffends, committing sexual assault and kidnapping, among other lesser offenses. The book is her perspective on the events that unfolded after. The personal narrative of Moroney grants a view into the wide effects of crime on the lives of victims, offenders, and their families. Being a victim herself, Moroney struggles with the incomprehensible actions of her husband, resulting in his traumatic betrayal. However, she also looks at her love for him and wants to figure out how he could have done such an awful thing. Moroney is at once the wife of an offender and the survivor of his crimes, therefore providing a unique perspective into the emotional fallout of violence.
Moroney challenges well-known victimhood, penalty, and retribution assumptions that underlie Moroney’s normative ethic throughout the book. She reveals deficiencies in the criminal justice system concerning both victims and offenders. The retribution model of justice employs punishment, in contrast to rehabilitation, which faces a critique. The restorative justice approach, as recommended by Moroney, proposes better and more humane treatment of all affected parties in a crime. While sharing her encounter, Moroney brings spirit issues of abstract crime and justice into the limelight. She makes readers think about hard questions of how society ought to respond to harm. This book report will look at how public perceptions of the criminal justice system have changed by delving into victimization, stigma, and restorative justice.
Stigma
The story begins seemingly innocent enough as she briefly details her first encounter with Jason. At the time, Jason was working at a local restaurant and was in the process of reintegrating into society. This is an important detail because it shows he was capable of being alone with other women as a productive member of the workforce prior to his reoffending when they accepted him and treated him like anyone else. None of the female staff viewed him as a threat. Shannon was a volunteer at the time, and a relationship ensued shortly after. Jason came clean to Shannon about his previous crime in an honest fashion during one of their dates, and she recalls the instant anxiety she felt surrounding the information. It was at this point that she felt the magnitude of fear that comes with stigmatization. I believe this was overcome with the acceptance of their peers and support from their families.
Shannon was a primary victim of the lesser offense of voyeurism committed by her spouse but faced many obstacles to be treated as such in her journey for justice. The first is her title as his wife. An unfortunate effect of the criminal justice system is its accountability towards the effects it has on the loved ones of the incarcerated. It is something I know all too well. These effects are largely due to the stigmatization surrounding incarcerated individuals and their families.
An example of this is first shown during the interrogation process (Moroney, 50). Stigmatization that is brought on by media as well as misinformation, if not lack thereof entirely. You first see it in how the arresting officers react to Moroney (Moroney 62) when an officer named Nora makes comments regarding Jason not wearing a wedding ring. This is also the first incident of revictimization for Shannon and, unfortunately, would not be the last.
Not only does stigma influence how law enforcers deal with prisoners as well as their kin, but the community as well in terms of how they view them. Moroney writes about the isolation she felt after Jason’s crimes became known to the local community, the former friends and companions who avoided her for her involvement with the convicted killer. If anything was against her, however, she was Jason’s wife. “In one night, we had become pariahs’ Moroney eloquently writes (Moroney 78). The social outcast status that the families holding prisoners are treated with makes reintegration into society impossible.
The media also feeds stigma when it sensationalizes violent crimes. Moroney observes that the news reporting of Jason’s case fails to give the whole picture. Instead, it is designed to seduce the public into reading it by the lurid details it provides. The media portrayed him as a crazed monster, denying the fact that he was responding well to therapy and trying to start afresh. This two-dimensional media representation reinforced public contempt. Though Moroney undisputedly became a victim of Jason’s latest misdeeds, the public always failed to separate their hatred of him apart from her image. She has to have a judge approve the ban on her name, and while her name was protected, she was still implicated when the ban was overturned by a reporter’s request to publish Jason’s was granted. The systemic stigma against criminals and their families is apparent in the government’s disregard for public opinion and lack of compassion for Shannon’s privacy. Despite being a victim, she is associated with her husband’s crimes and repeatedly denied dignity and fairness.
In the end, Maroney’s case shows how stigma fosters injustice. The society that broadly stigmatizes offenders and their relatives prevails in a space of fear rather than understanding. Stigmatization alienates the relatives of prisoners against the needed solidarity. Humanizing prisoners like Jason, Moroney challenges prejudicial beliefs that underpin stigmatization. She promotes less oversimplified social beliefs that reflect on how manipulative crime is. Media plays a large part in this as well, portraying offenders as heartless and uncaring. This is not to say some cannot be, but in many cases, it is untrue.
As if the preceding events were not enough, she loses her job. When the principal stated that one of the students was the stepchild of the victim, I was understanding. However, bias begins to show in the way she is led to believe that none of her colleagues have sympathy for her. This is why she is surprised when the staff send their condolences and flowers, and she discovers they were told a different story from what happened the day she was dismissed. The truth is that they all felt sorry for her, so much so that many of them would eventually create a circle for healing with her. A healing circle is a known Indigenous restorative principle that has also been wildly used in third-world countries in cases of genocide due to the vast numbers of victims and in acknowledgment that the regular system would take far too many years to bring justice. Especially since many of the offenders in those countries were victims forced to commit acts themselves. This is grossly ironic, as this book later goes on to tell readers that the trial process for this particular case took approximately two whole years.
Victimization
The novel shows that the conditions within prison demand a level of detachment to survive because it reintroduces victimization factors to the offender through violence like rape (Moroney 242). For Jason, this is extremely detrimental, as the book states he is diagnosed with DID, a disorder that results in complete dissociation from person and reality. It is known that this is generally caused by intense trauma and can be treated, something the criminal psychiatrist appallingly ignores, likely due to her own bias as well. To make matters worse, she contradicts her diagnosis, stating that he is mentally competent enough to be calculated and methodical even despite his diagnosis, and this is a fact accepted in court! That was astounding to me because even as a non-professional, I doubt someone with DID should be classified as mentally competent in any capacity.
The system makes a victim out of everyone, including the offender. Because of Jason’s condition, when he experiences danger or stress, it would seem that he is triggered. Once triggered, his alter ego, the one capable of his crimes, takes over. We first see this when he tells Shannon of his initial crime. He tells her that the woman whom he was having relations with threatened to expose him, and that was what led to her murder. Then later in the novel, it is shown during his questioning in a trial, and finally, he says he had shut down during his previous sentence. The last of what we come to learn is that he was sexually violated during his initial incarceration, a repeating occurrence in his life from what happened to him as a child at the hands of his foster family.
The more she Is viewed as guilty by association, the more she becomes introverted and anti-social. This is despite being a victim, and while she grapples with mourning the life she lost, accepting she is punished for his crime, left to worry and consider victims she has never met, seek the answers she needs for herself, and still advocate for him since No one else will. Though she remains remarkably empathetic and committed to understanding the truth, the judgment passed on her simply for being Jason’s wife takes an immense psychological toll.
There is symbolism in the chapters of the book. The final portion is labeled as “Rebuilding”; it begins after the trial when she begins to let go of her connection with Jason and starts her advocacy journey when she finds her new place in employment. This, to me, shows the weight and daunting tasks she had to suffer while being labeled a spouse and victim (Moroney, 2011). The structure of the book mirrors Shannon’s arduous personal growth as she sheds the stigma of being Jason’s wife and transforms from an isolated victim to an empowered advocate calling for change.
All processes regarding protocols for visitation, how the trial would go, and what was going on with him were left to her to find out through him via victim-offender mediation, which she initiated and was not formally offered nor mediated. The justice system fails to provide Shannon with the necessary information and support at every turn, forcing her to confront her husband and relive trauma to get basic answers. This victimizes her by ignoring her needs as a survivor.
Restorative justice
Moroney’s frustrating interactions with the justice system and victim services clearly demonstrate the need for a more restorative, rehabilitative approach that better serves the needs of all affected parties. Through Moroney’s search to seek help and information from the justice system, it becomes evident how the current retributive model cannot meet the needs of victims. Despite the goal of victim services to help survivors heal, Moroney was left outside because of her relationship with Jason. This is a contradiction of restorative justice standards that recognize that harm does not only affect the primary victim. Moroney advocates a more interrelated, participatory process that responds to victim preferences as well as provides outlets for offender accountability.
He goes on to detail how the justice system failed her because of her classification as his spouse. While acknowledging she was a victim herself, she was actively denied support, and when she sought them herself, there were few resources. It was the support of her community and those surrounding her that ultimately helped her heal and propelled her to become an advocate for the success of restorative justice principles. Wherein the victim services representative denied her, she found refuge in artwork assigned to her by Sue and through speaking with Jason to get the facts. Facts she might not know about him in regards to his case had she not taken such a keen curiosity, like the fact that he was a sexual Sadist and made that way through ACEs.
Another way this illustrates the importance of restorative justice is the fact that as the staff within the system get to know her, the more they admit to their assumptions and how Jason does not fit their ideals of danger. Shannon confronts the parole officer and Crown attorney regarding Her treatment as opposed to the other victims, and their lack of communication between departments has a revictimizing effect.
The restorative way of thinking also cares for rehabilitation and reintegration, while the system that existed, therefore, usually secludes and separates the prisoners. According to Moroney, such programs only enable the humanization of offenders such as Jason through therapy aimed at handling the dry root of trauma. Rather, his criminality is due to childhood abuse rather than character. She subverts the common narrative of the irredeemable criminal. In a restorative paradigm, reconciling offenders then gain the appropriate status to be contributing community members again.
Contrasted as she starts to heal by moving to do the program and opens up to her new friends, the one article by Molly paints Jason in a better light when he is transferred to the mental health facility to await diagnosis and when she finds love again. Also, when he takes accountability by being the one to call the police on himself after the victim humanized him, again throughout the process, as he waits for trial and intends to plead guilty immediately, he states he does not feel worthy, tells Shannon all she wants to know, and provides his apology at the end of the trial. Moments of healing, reconciliation, and taking accountability reflect restorative justice values of repairing harm through understanding and addressing victims’ needs. Shannon finds some peace in human connection versus isolation.
In the long run, what follows from this is that Moroney’s case shows how the punitive system of justice turns away both the victims and the criminals. Through a personal account of intimate decadence, Moroney makes human recognition of a subject that many might as well prefer to cringe from. Her forceful change plea poses a threat to the retributive state of things and offers a practice for other collaborative, reparative responses. Moroney demonstrates how restorative justice can change life, promoting understanding over judgment and rehabilitation over segregation.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Shannon Moroney’s memoir reveals the effects of the crime not only on its victim but also on its offender and society as a whole. Moroney reveals the failures of the dominant retributive justice system to satisfy the intricate requirements of all players through her terrifying personal struggle. The above stigma, isolation, and revictimization she suffers prove that the current model re-victimizes as well as isolates survivors and prisoners alike. Delivered are occasional reconciliatory and remedial markers in Mom’s are on Moroney’s journey, which points to a potentially more redemptive outcome.
In the final analysis, the story “Through the Glass” gives a human aspect to issues of crime and punishment, making people review their perceptions. Moroney dares reform the status quo by reminding us of how significant knowledge, reform, and consideration of the victim claims are. This is evident in the way her story highlights the requirement of a restorative justice process that provides an inventory of healing instead of judgment or revenge. Moroney’s frank account serves as a liberating example of how restorative principles can change our lives and communities through sheer dint of courage. Her book stimulates very important discussion about establishing a fairer and more humane criminal justice system.
Work Cited
Moroney, S. (2011). Through the glass. Doubleday Canada.
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