Remorse

All this time I am doing my practicum at JKM Kepala Batas, under the unit of "akhlak," I have gone to follow my supervisor to do a lot of works and processes just to handle a case of juvenile delinquency. One question strikes me after several interviews with several offenders, and apparently it's a question my supervisor has been asking herself too. It is, how do you really know if someone is really remorseful towards what he or she did?

My supervisor said that she depends a lot on her instincts. Then, her instincts will depend on what she sees and hears during the interview. She would look at the body language, at how the offenders communicate, and how they react towards anything my supervisor has anything to say. Then, basing on that, she will determine if they really feel remorseful towards what they did. I'm not sure, but for me, it is quite simplistic, although understanding how demanding her works are, she can't really be choosy in what she is doing. But I have something else to say.

I say, they all feel remorseful, during that time.

Put yourself in the offenders' shoes. And imagine being in the position where a person, who can determine how your future is, (the "akhlak" official) is nagging you with questions that you must answer. Those questions can be threatening and for most of time, you are not sure if answering the question honestly or lying will do you any good. Especially, this is the first meeting, so you don't feel the trust to the official yet. What you feel is another person coming to see you to "do her job." You, bottomline, are in an intimidating situation. So, I'd say, at this time, you most likely tell yourself, "Why did I do it in the first place??" Regretting the offense that you did. Then, it follows by, "If I could turn back time," or "I really don't want to do it again," or "Please stop, I won't do it again." Therefore, in a way, you feel remorseful and it seems genuine, isn't it? (Well, except for the rare cases where feelings are out of questions or absent at all that usually only exist in psychopathic offenders.)

But I ask myself another question, "So, why do some offenders repeat their offense?"

So, for me, the real issue here is not whether they really feel remorseful, because I personally believe they all do. The real issue lies on the question whether or not the remorse lasts long enough to remind them of the consequences of their behaviors. The key is the feeling, because if you recall the imagination I ask you to do above, you'd understand that in the interviews, you'd feel all sorts of feelings you don't want to be feeling. Thus, these feelings make you not want to do it again, because the feelings hurt.

Then, perhaps what you should do if you were handling a juvenile case is to make sure that the feelings that trigger the remorse to last long. Just like bath, the reminder (or motivation) needs to be done everyday. The question now is, "How can we make sure that the offenders always remember that it hurts to see they and what they do hurt others?" Well, this is a question I can't really answer. I'm not an expert in motivation and hope one day I am. Maybe replenishing motivation is different than replenishing remorseful feelings. Well, we need to study on this.