Have you ever noticed whenever there’s a crime, the criminal usually leaves something behind, like an identifier or some clue or other. It’s how people get caught, the anatomy of criminology is very interesting, but there’s something it reminds me of that criminologists perhaps don’t consider. Want to know what?
As you should probably already know, I’m a Scientologist. That doesn’t mean I tell everyone about how they have to become Scientologists in order to survive, or that I try to “convert” all my friends. Far from it in fact, but I use Scientology in my life every single day, and it really does run through a lot of my activities, particularly because I work at the Church of Scientology, but also because as a practical philosophy, it has solutions to many of the common problems we are faced with on a daily basis. So let’s take this criminal. I witnessed a crime this week but I didn’t catch the perpetrator because I thought he was legitimately in the place where I saw him, which I later found out he wasn’t. He left behind several clues, including his own blood. I joked with the police officer and forensic expert about how he wasn’t even a clever criminal, but then it makes you wonder why people who commit crimes really do leave so many clues. Cryptic as they may be, the police usually find them or they get otherwise caught up or end up destroying themselves, even if that means living in hiding or on the run—it’s destructive of their life for sure.
So I’m reading a book called Introduction to Scientology Ethics by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. It’s a reference book taken directly from Hubbard’s administrative policy letters for Churches of Scientology on the subject of “ethics”. Before I give you the quote about criminals that I want to share, why don’t we have a look at this thing called “ethics”. What does Hubbard mean exactly?
“Throughout the ages, Man has struggled with the subjects of right and wrong and ethics and justice.
“…Ethicsconsists simply of the actions an individual takes on himself. It is a personal thing. When one is ethical or “has his ethics in,” it is by his own determinism and is done by himself.”
So now what does Hubbard say about the criminal?
“When a person finds himself committing too many harmful acts… he becomes his own executioner. This gives us the proof that Man is basically good.
“The criminal who leaves clues behind is doing so in hopes that someone will come along to stop him from continuing to harm others. He is basically good and does not want to harm others. And in the absence of an ability to stop himelf outright, he attempts to put ethics in on himself by getting thrown in prison where he will no longer be able to commit crimes.”
I found something else interesting. The police officer told me that statistics show 2% of people commit 95% of crime. We were discussing the fact that even if crime is prevalent in an area, it still represents a minority of activity, because most people are doing good things. It’s only if you believe the media that you’ll start thinking the world is full of war, crime and madness.
In discussing the antisocial personality, Hubbard gave some interesting statistics which seem to correlate with this. He said that “they only comprise 20 percent of the population” and “only 2 1/2 percent are truly dangerous”. That fits with our policeman’s 2% figure. Very interesting.
So in conclusion then, people are basically good but sometimes it goes wrong. The evil actions people undertake may be very harmful, but they are against the best nature of the individual and sooner or later he won’t need to seek for whom the bell tolls…