One of mankind’s strongest propensities is the desire to classify people into neat categories.  Categories helps us organize our lives into predictable patterns, and help us manage risk.  Stereotypes often have their genesis in an unwitting attempt to classify human behavior so as to minimize one’s exposure to risk.  Unfortunately, history has taught that when people relying on these stereotypes also occupy positions of power—whether political or cultural—the results can be devastating.  Stereotypes can and often do calcify into hierarchies that lead to inequitable treatment for the affected groups.

Nowhere is the desire for categories more apparent than in the criminal justice system.  For literally thousands of years, human civilizations have erected institutions whose purpose is to separate those who participate in anti-social behavior from the rest of society.  A person convicted of such behavior is “marked” by the system for the safety of others.  In contemporary parlance, we would refer to this as the person’s “record.”  Those so marked are referred to as “convicts,” “felons,” and so forth.  

The primary purpose of this arrangement, like any other system of human classification, is to help people manage risk.  When you see a convict, you know something about their past.  In theory, this means that you’re dealing with a person who has shown themselves capable of some form of malfeasance in the past.  This allows you to manage your dealings with that individual so as to reduce your risk of injury.  At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work in theory.

The problem with this arrangement is that, while convenient and easy to understand, it is riddled with flaws.  Perhaps none greater than the simple fact that it belies the complexity of the human condition.  It creates a world in which people cannot fathom how a drug dealer who shamelessly fed the habits of addicts might nonetheless still be a good father to his children.  It creates a world in which people cannot fathom how a person might steal someone’s car in the morning, but tend to their sick, elderly grandmother at night.  Under this arrangement, people cannot fathom how a person might inflict grievous injury on a person one day, but then later turn around and save someone’s life the next.

And so it is when we learn that Charles Ramsey, the Cleveland neighbor who recently helped save several female captives from a kidnapping nightmare which lasted upwards of 10 years, is a convicted felon who served time in prison for battering his ex-wife.  He apparently has several convictions on his record, with the latest occurring in 2003:

Ramsey’s first domestic violence charge came in February 1997. He entered a no contest plea a year later and was found guilty of the count by a Cleveland Municipal Court judge. While waiting to be sentenced, Ramsey was again arrested for domestic violence.

At the time of Ramsey’s second collar, in July 1998, he was already the subject of an arrest warrant issued in connection with his failure to appear for a court hearing in the first domestic violence case. As a result, Ramsey was jailed for violating terms of his release on bond. Ramsey subsequently entered a no contest plea to the second case and was, again, found guilty by a Cleveland judge.

The domestic violence cases apparently were consolidated for sentencing in August 1998, when Ramsey was ordered to serve six months in jail, placed on five years probation, and directed to attend a domestic violence counseling program.

Following his release from custody, Ramsey violated probation terms, according to an April 1999 court docket entry. While an arrest warrant was issued for Ramsey, it is unclear from court records whether it was executed before both misdemeanor cases were formally closed several years later.

Ramsey was again busted for domestic abuse in January 2003. He was subsequently indicted for felony “domestic violence with prior conviction,” a reference to his previous abuse cases.

There’s been a lot of commentary surrounding Ramsey’s case.  Many have called him a hero for rushing to the aid of Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, and Michelle Knight.  But can a former wife batterer really be a hero?

Whatever crimes Charles Ramsey has committed, it doesn’t change the fact that he helped end the kidnapping nightmare of several incredibly scared and and abused women.  He also helped reunite those women with their families.  The injuries he has inflicted in the past, however repugnant, do not diminish the relief that these women must feel at finally having their freedom.  They do not diminish the unexpected joy their families feel at discovering that their daughters are still alive.

This is why the desire to classify people as fundamentally “good” or “bad” does us a disservice.  As I’m often anxious to point out around here, “virtues don’t excuse sins, they cohabit with them.”  No person is the sum of the worst thing they’ve ever done.  That doesn’t mean we ought to ignore Ramsey’s prior bad acts altogether.  It simply means that the “goodness” of his recent actions do not depend on the absence of prior bad acts in his past.  Human beings are complex creatures, and they act for complex reasons.  Charles Ramsey may have been precisely the sort of scumbag who beats his wife back in 2003.  But he’s also the same scumbag who recently helped end the living nightmares of three captured and abused women.  Those women probably do not care much about Charles Ramsey’s checkered past.  His good deeds don’t necessarily absolve him of past wrongs.  But perhaps Ramsey’s recent actions are a good indicator that the way we label and treat convicted felons doesn’t necessarily tell us a whole lot about their capacity to be “good” after they’ve incurred a debt to society—even if that debt was the result of real injuries he may have inflicted on others in the past.