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Politically incorrect: sympathy and charity for Those Left Behind
The Worthy Cause in the previous post, BTW, was the Policemen's Benevolent Association. I don't have anything against them, but they're not on our usual list of Worthy Causes to Donate To. And I started thinking...
Why do people donate money to help the families of police officers who have died in the line of duty, but not to help the families of drug dealers who have died in the line of duty? Obviously, the police officer is viewed as working for the public good, and the drug dealer isn't (although this gets fuzzy; see NPR story below), so the police officer is a more sympathetic victim. But why does this sympathy carry over to their families? Both families have lost a loved one due to a combination of career choice and plain old bad luck. In both cases, the family didn't have much choice in the matter (indeed, the children had no choice in the matter), but they had to deal with the uncertainty in their daily lives. Why is one family more sympathetic, and deserving of charity, than the other?
Here's another thought experiment. Imagine that your husband/wife/parent/child/whatever worked in the World Trade Center, and was killed on 9/11/2001 ... in a car accident on the way to work. Your loved one is just as dead as if (s)he had gotten to the office on the 94th floor. Your family is just as broken-hearted, and just as devoid of a breadwinner, as the families of the 3000 people who were killed in the attack. But you're not eligible for millions of dollars of compensation from the Federal government, because your loved one died half an hour too early.
How about this one: a 26-year-old grad student is kidnapped and murdered, a suspect is promptly captured, tried, and convicted on the basis of solid evidence. The student's family, in accordance with the state's policy on "victim impact statements", appears in court with high school pictures and give their tearful testimony; the suspect gets the maximum possible penalty. The same day, a 26-year-old homeless, mentally ill man who hadn't bathed in weeks is also murdered. Finding his killer isn't a high priority, but police happen to find good evidence pointing to a suspect, who is tried, convicted, and sentenced to a lesser penalty. Both murderers have committed (as far as they knew) the same crime, but the one who picked a sympathetic, attractive victim with sympathetic, attractive, articulate relatives gets the harsher punishment.
This morning on NPR there was a story about a sociologist who "embedded" with a drug gang for a couple of months, and then wrote a book about it. He points out that in the neighborhood in question, the general public don't trust the police (either to come when needed, or to behave helpfully once they arrive), and furthermore that the drug gang has taken on some of the roles of a police department cum social services agency: they bring charitable donations to the victims of natural and human disasters, and when a guy beats up his girlfriend, they round up a vigilante posse to beat him up in return. The same has apparently occurred with some organized-crime families, and with terrorist groups such as Hamas: for whatever reason, the "legitimate" government is excluded from a particular geographic area, and whoever has local power takes on some of the benevolent roles of a government.
Why do people donate money to help the families of police officers who have died in the line of duty, but not to help the families of drug dealers who have died in the line of duty? Obviously, the police officer is viewed as working for the public good, and the drug dealer isn't (although this gets fuzzy; see NPR story below), so the police officer is a more sympathetic victim. But why does this sympathy carry over to their families? Both families have lost a loved one due to a combination of career choice and plain old bad luck. In both cases, the family didn't have much choice in the matter (indeed, the children had no choice in the matter), but they had to deal with the uncertainty in their daily lives. Why is one family more sympathetic, and deserving of charity, than the other?
Here's another thought experiment. Imagine that your husband/wife/parent/child/whatever worked in the World Trade Center, and was killed on 9/11/2001 ... in a car accident on the way to work. Your loved one is just as dead as if (s)he had gotten to the office on the 94th floor. Your family is just as broken-hearted, and just as devoid of a breadwinner, as the families of the 3000 people who were killed in the attack. But you're not eligible for millions of dollars of compensation from the Federal government, because your loved one died half an hour too early.
How about this one: a 26-year-old grad student is kidnapped and murdered, a suspect is promptly captured, tried, and convicted on the basis of solid evidence. The student's family, in accordance with the state's policy on "victim impact statements", appears in court with high school pictures and give their tearful testimony; the suspect gets the maximum possible penalty. The same day, a 26-year-old homeless, mentally ill man who hadn't bathed in weeks is also murdered. Finding his killer isn't a high priority, but police happen to find good evidence pointing to a suspect, who is tried, convicted, and sentenced to a lesser penalty. Both murderers have committed (as far as they knew) the same crime, but the one who picked a sympathetic, attractive victim with sympathetic, attractive, articulate relatives gets the harsher punishment.
This morning on NPR there was a story about a sociologist who "embedded" with a drug gang for a couple of months, and then wrote a book about it. He points out that in the neighborhood in question, the general public don't trust the police (either to come when needed, or to behave helpfully once they arrive), and furthermore that the drug gang has taken on some of the roles of a police department cum social services agency: they bring charitable donations to the victims of natural and human disasters, and when a guy beats up his girlfriend, they round up a vigilante posse to beat him up in return. The same has apparently occurred with some organized-crime families, and with terrorist groups such as Hamas: for whatever reason, the "legitimate" government is excluded from a particular geographic area, and whoever has local power takes on some of the benevolent roles of a government.
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