---
title: 'Crime and Punishment'
date: '2003-07-16T09:46:21-04:00'
permalink: /crime-and-punishment/
tags:
    - novels
---

Today on [MetaFilter](http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/27011 "MeFi"): a link to a [report](http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/6311519.htm "Philly.com") of a Pennsylvania man who, accused of spitting at a police officer, has been sentenced to read [To Kill a Mockingbird](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0446310786/plannedobsole-20). The discussion focuses mostly on those texts with some apparent punitive value, the things they made you suffer through in eighth grade. But I wonder: if, as [Richard Rorty](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521367816/plannedobsole-20) claims, the social and political value of literature is in its ability to help us build a sense of solidarity with those whose life experiences are very different from our own, is there a better way to frame such a reading sentence? If the task were not punishment but rehabilitation, what would you assign, and for what offenses? Or, conversely, what offenses would your favorite novels serve as remedies for?