As we continue to deal with the likes of Bernie Madoff and other swindlers who have lost millions of dollars for their investors, perhaps Elie Wiesel has a good idea on how to punish all of them. Holocaust survivor, human rights activist and author Elie Wiesel lost his entire life savings with Madoff. His charity, the Elie Wiesel Foundation, lost another $15.2 million. As Wiesel said, “‘Psychopath'” is too nice a word for him. This man knew what he was doing. I would simply call him thief, scoundrel, criminal.”
Speaking on a panel last week about what punishment he would like to see for Mr. Madoff, Mr. Wiesel said,
I would like him to be in a solitary cell with only a screen, and on that screen for at least five years of his life, every day and every night, there should be pictures of his victims, one after the other after the other, all the time a voice saying, “Look what you have done to this old lady, look what you have done to that child, look what you have done,” nothing else.
Professor Jonathan Hyman, in forwarding this lovely snippet to me, noted that this sounds a lot like part of a Restorative Justice process. I agree. Since Madoff will never be able to pay his victims back or help them put their lives back together, perhaps the best punishment is to be reminded daily of how many lives he ruined.
Cross posted at Indisputably.
“A beggar’s mistake harms no one but the beggar. A king’s mistake, however, harms everyone but the king. Too often, the measure of power lies not in the number who obey your will, but in the number who will suffer your stupidity,” writes R. Scott Bakker in his latest novel, The Judging Eye. 