“The Irregular...is from his birth...excluded from all posts of responsibility, trust, and useful activity. His every movement is jealously watched by the police till he comes of age and presents himself for inspection; then he is either destroyed, if he is found to exceed the fixed margin of deviation, or else immured in a Government Office as a clerk of the seventh class.”
This is an excerpt from “Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions”, the mathematical fantasy, social satire book written by Edwin A. Abbott in the late XIX century. I’m currently reading it and when I came across this passage, it immediately appeared to me as a perfect depiction of the living conditions of latent criminals in the Sibyl System society.
Flatland is a two-dimensional world, inhabited by geometrical figures. The shape, namely the number of sides of its inhabitants, determines their lives in terms of possibility of education and social status/occupation, so that, for instance, a many-sided polygon would have access to a far better life with respect to an humble triangle. However, whereas having more or less sides impacts on your standard of life within society, “the whole social system is based upon Regularity”. The more despicable condition for a being in that world, thus, is to possess not equal sides, or present an irregular figure: this is considered a menace for the order of society; consequently, whoever possess an irregular shape, depending on the degree of his irregularity, is forced to be executed, in the worst cases, or to live a life apart from the rest of society, in less severe cases.
“ ‘Irregularity of Figure’ means with us the same as, or more than, a combination of moral ambiguity and criminality with you, and is treated accordingly. “
Hence, we can consider the irregularity index as the equivalent of the Crime Coefficient, and irregular individuals as latent criminals, i.e. individuals which “exceed the fixed margin of deviation”.
In the Sibyl System society, whoever possess a crime-coefficient over the secure threshold is immediately considered a threat for the order of society, and must be promptly destroyed (in the most literal terms) or otherwise, in case his “irregularity” still remains in a despicable yet acceptable zone, isolated from the rest of society.
However, in Flatland as in the Sibyl System society, the vast majority of society does not think that there’s still possibility of improvement for such individuals. From when their Crime Coefficient exceeds the fixed level, an individual is no longer considered a valuable member of society. He is consequently excluded from it, and taken apart in isolated centers, where he is given an proper “therapy”, which more or less has been shown to be forced pharmacological treatment and constant monitoring.
This is done in the interests of the great majority of society and in order to ensure the safety of its regular citizens. As in Flatland, “doubtless, the life of an Irregular is hard; but the interests of the Greater Number require that it shall be hard”.
However, a few of Flatland inhabitants sustain that experiencing such life conditions, there’s no doubt that even the best and purest human nature would be embittered and perverted.
I’ve always found pretty odd the way of Sibyl System to address the issue of latent criminals. Is it really to isolate them, to lead society to despise and avoid them, the best way to assure order in its society? Woudn’t it be better to treat them as normal human beings, find a way that would fit them into society, instead of isolating them into what could be defined as prisons? For a system that proclaims itself as the best rational system to lead society, isn’t it a pretty apparent failure?
Characters like Kagari Shusei and Amari Hina (from KKS manga) have been forced to live in rehabilitation centers since their childhood. They have been isolated from society without even having had the possibility to actually live in it, only because of their crime coefficient, or because of their “irregularity”. But how could they grow up into apt and useful citizens, living a life like the one that they had in the rehabilitation centers? How could this surroundings fit the aim of “rehabilitate” them”?
