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What May Possibly Be the Worst Les Mis Fanfiction of All Time aka the Legal Scholars AU

Look, if Mr. Justice Gilles Renaud reads this, I am sorry, but I read his 90 page book and each page was filled with some new horror. First of all, “Mr. Justice” is not his first name; Mr. Justice is apparently what you call a judge in Canada. And he is an actual judge, which kind of frightens, but does not surprise me. He is also a legal scholar and this book was published by a scholarly press, the Sandstone Academic Press in Melbourne.

This is the book’s premise:

The reader is invited to participate in an unprecedented educational conference, held at Deakin Law School [in Australia], hosted by the publishers of the International Journal of Punishment and Sentencing [also real, also based out of Australia] to which are invited Jean Valjean, Fantine, Javert and Bishop "Welcome" as guest lecturers. Each in turn, and at times together, will address a plenary session of criminologists, lawyers, judges, probation officers, politicians, and others vitally interested in the reform of sentencing law. Drawing upon their lives, as penned by Hugo, and upon a surprisingly well-developed knowledge of academic writings, they will debate the merits of current penology as defined in the widest sense, and in so doing, will confront contemporary views on themes such as the mitigation arising from social deprivation, the merits of criminalizing prostitution, the need to maintain prisons while radically enhancing the methods of re-integrating former detainees into the community, and the scope to be accorded rehabilitation in selecting a fit and fair sanction, among other issues. [emphasis mine]

Look, I don’t hate the premise but I promise this conference is going to be a wild ride. So, please head over to the registration booth, sign in and pick up your swag bag, then stop by the lobby for some light refreshments, and head into the first event of the day:

That’s right, Fantine will be leading the first session, and it will be chaired by Professor D. E. Nine of Harvard University (I do not think this is a real person, I think this is the first of the many OCs who are attending the conference). Professor Nine introduces Fantine to the audience. (In this introduction Cosette is spelled both correctly and incorrectly in the same sentence). You will be happy to know that Fantine strode to the podium "with a confident air." Apparently she has had a lot of time to study the law since she died (Canadian law, that is.) Fantine uses a projector to show the audience her notes on the Canadian penal code and argues that Bamatabois's attack constitutes sexual assault.

"It is plausible for me to suggest that Mr. Bamatabois would be found guilty of a sexual assault as his verbal attacks coupled with his physical attack made it plain that he was assaulting me, a prostitute, by reason of my being one, coupled with the fact that I was unattractive in his eyes."

According to Fantine, Bamatabois could receive a maximum prison sentence of 18 months. However, she says, a person convicted of placing bets on behalf of others may be imprisoned for up to two years. Using a laser pointer, Fantine gives other examples of criminalized behavior that received harsher penalties than sexual assault, "to illustrate that certain values are given pre-eminence over those of the sexual integrity of men, women and children."

After taking questions from the audience, Fantine concludes by saying "The point of my presentation this morning is to urge you to return to your home jurisdictions and to search out for these types of unequal penalty schemes and to seek legislative amendments in order that the violations of the personal integrity of our brothers and sisters be penalized with greater objective severity than gaming offenses." I'm not a legal scholar (unlike Fantine), I'm just trying to summarize a book so I'm not going to offer commentary on the ideas she presents here. Let's just go to the next session.

Professor Sacha Trofimenkoff of the School of Criminology at Saint Mary's University chaired this lecture and entertained the audience by name-dropping famous Australian judges. Some members of the audience were running late and came to the lecture hall directly from the airport.

Bishop Myriel, or Bishop Welcome as he is introduced by Professor Trofimenkoff, "began his presentation in almost too soft a voice, apparently ill at ease at having to discuss his private affairs." Although he describes Hugo's account of his own life as "relatively unimportant passages," he cites his life story as evidence that humans can change for the better at any point in time, which he wants to see reflected in sentencing guidelines.

"Sadly," Myriel says, "the evidence seems to suggest that many more offenders pursue the opposite journey and come to adopt anti-social behaviors or attitudes, as was the case of our beloved Fantine." (Kind of a rude thing to say about his colleague.)

Myriel gives many examples of books on the topic at hand and then "hesitated, fearful that his listeners were growing disinterested, but he realized the silence that marked the room was evidence of rapt attention."

The bishop was about to end the first part of his lecture when he said "May I add a few words, which I wish to do as a result of a pointer I received from an American friend who suggests that I must always complete a speech with a humorous comment." The comment is not important, I just want to point out that apparently, Myriel has an American friend.

The conversation turns to war criminals (?!), Dr. Trofimenkoff quotes Hamlets and the session is over (for now).

During the recess, the Bishop receives many requests to speak at different schools. Upon returning to the podium, he introduces several books on the topic of restorative justice, arguing that the communities from which criminals originate (side eye at the idea that there aren't criminals in other communities that aren't being hyper-policied) and the communities to which they return need to be invested in. Although he is very modest and therefore hesitant to share about himself, he gives as an example the city of Briancon, a community in his bishopric where there hasn't been a murder in 100 years, as well as the improvements made to Montreuil-sur-Mer by Jean Valjean. I know this doesn't seem that bad, and I am going to skip over Fantine's small group discussion on the subject of the unintended consequences of sentencing (except to say that she is a very skilled facilitator) and jump straight to:

The report on this small group session begins with a note on “concerns surrounding reliability of information.” I was expecting this to be about Javert’s reliability but instead, it was about the reliability of character witnesses who often exaggerate (for better or for worse) an offender’s qualities. As an example of unreliable information, Javert cites rumors which were spread about Bishop Myriel, as well as Fantine. Although there was a rumor that Fantine had abandoned her child, “ ‘the truth,’ noted Javert, who was always scrupulously punctilious as to the facts, although often blinded by class issues, ‘the truth is that Fantine had not abandoned her child, far from it!’ ” He urges sentencing judges not to rush to conclusions, saying: “in effect, most questions may be ‘flipped’ or stopped on their head, and one ought not to leap to judgment,” which is funny coming from a man who jumped off a bridge in order to avoid critical thinking.

The next morning, Javert kicked off the second day of the conference with his plenary session.

“Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen," intoned the career police officer whom Hugo had described initially as a Spartan, a monk, a pitiless individual lying in wait, possessed of a ferocious honest, ‘Brutus in Vidocq.’ Of course, he was no such thing as we well know given his subsequent suicide, the only means he knew to justify his decision not to arrest Valjean. [No, I did not know that about him.] "As you are all liberals who despise the prison system and libertarians who hate justice and retribution, I need not mince words in addressing you. I am a firm believer in populist law and order, in just deserts, indeed, in punishment for the sake of punishment . . ." Needless to say, he had gained the rapt attention of all those present. [Is he negging the audience?]

He explained the circumstances of his birth and his career in the police. He said “I owe my liberty and my freedom to the very existence of a jail system. . .Custody of some serves the liberty of all!” (Now do you see why I hate this?)

Javert took a sip of water (“disdaining the juices and other beverages”) while the audience thought about his words. Before he could continue he was interrupted by Professor Simon Segovia of the University of Seville, who quoted Hemingway and stated that “Prisons harm those they seek to improve.” In response, Javert emotionally revealed his strict moral code, as a result of which he “led a life of privation, isolation, abnegation, chastity, with never a diversion” (and thereby sidestepped Professor Segovia’s question).

Another professor (“who looked on at him with a mixture of frank puzzlement and understated bemusement”) asked him to comment on the case of Paul Crump (sidenote, you may be familiar with this name if you are a fan of Phil Ochs).

“What say you respecting the tremendous strides that felon achieved when given access to books?”. . . “What would you have me say,’ sneered Javert, “I have never stated that prison ought not to assist offenders, quite to the contrary. . .the fact that so many prisons represent abject failures in respect of their foundational purpose is no justification for demolishing them, however. In fact, it might be said that there is a better advocate of the. . . utility of prison. . .in our midst’s. . .and that is Jean Valjean himself.”

That's right. The room was silent except for some whispers and the sound of pens on paper. Everyone in the audience disapproved of what Javert had said except one man, “the former forçât [sic] Valjean” who “began his comments with a whispered 'Bravo!' " He came up to the podium and continued:

Javert has said out loud what I have long believed. Indeed, prison did elevate my base instincts somewhat in that I did receive a form of education that was far superior to what I had obtained in my childhood. Further, I did learn discipline in the prison setting . . . In addition, I did acquire a grudging sense of respect for the justice that was meted out in that place.

After taking a drink and “whispering to those around him that being over two hundred years old meant that he should take his time in completing his assignment,” he said:

My old foe and friend is quite correct . . . it was just that I be jailed for my crime . . . It is important for me to acknowledge publicly, once again for the sake of emphasis, although this may affront certain liberal-minded reformers, that I was able to acquire the rudiments of an education while in prison . . . and I might well have done far better had I applied myself.

I'm sorry for putting the whole quote in bold but I can't help it. Jean Valjean says actually prisons are good! Then, in support of that idea, a South African student, Kagiso Nankudhu, (again, this is a fictional character) gives the example of anti-Apartheid political prisoners who studied while imprisoned.

Overall though, Valjean’s claim that there is no “new punitiveness,” and that the idea is just political rhetoric, did not go over well with the audience. He did concede, however, that Canada seemed to be heading in the right direction. (Really??) Javert closed the session by quoting Nelson Mandela.

At the 1 o’clock plenary session, Professor Saku Maki of Helsinki University introduced Valjean thus:

Jean Valjean is the universal symbol for English-speaking lawyers and criminologists of the impoverished individual who became an offender only by reason of the State having offended against him . . . I will now invite him to explain in his own words how he feels about this popular image of Valjean as the victim, and never as the victimizer.

In short, Valjean has come to the conclusion that the theft of bread was “extreme and blameworthy,” that he should have just asked for the bread, and that, even though there were starving children involved, he should have waited to earn enough money because it is very rare for someone to die of hunger. (So what is the point of this whole "debate" if you are just going to change the character's beliefs from the book?)

Then Valjean turned the mic over to Professor Reed Johnson of the University of Ottawa, “a genial, ruddy-faced middle-aged individual whose nickname among the student body is ‘Guinness’” (another one of the author’s OCs), who lectured on the question “is it relevant to the selection of a fit sentence that an offender has known but sadness in life?” He cites Eponine and Azelma as examples of abused children who grow up to have a life of crime and speculates that Valjean’s nephews probably became criminals as well. This went on for some time until it was Javert’s turn to speak. Javert stated that he disagreed with Victor Hugo’s assertation that “the faults of women, of children, of the feeble, the indigent, and the ignorant, are the fault of the husbands, the fathers, the masters, the strong, the rich, and the wise.” (So why write a book about the law and Victor Hugo if you don't like what he has to say about the law?) Jean Valjean knew that the audience would want to debate the ideas discussed but to avoid that, he invited Bishop Myriel to provide some closing comments. (Why frame this as a debate if the characters try to avoid a debate!?)

On Wednesday, Jean Valjean recounted the whole story of his 19 years in prison and said:

Having reflected long and hard on my further crimes, and the foolishness of my behavior, I wish to state to you that my friend Javert cannot be faulted for his belief that each of the individual sentences was proportionate to my misconduct, that the total penalty in each case was fairly estimated, and that the gradation of the penalties was not ill-advised.

He asserts that the harsh penalty for his second escape attempt, in which he hit a guard, was warranted, in order to protect “those who hold such dangerous occupations, be they police officers, prosecutors, judges, probation officers, social workers engaged with offenders, etc.,” even though he admits that it is unclear whether punishing attacks against prison guards prevent further attacks. In fact, he admits that “it is the retribution visited upon the prisoners during periodic assertions of naked force by prison staff. . . .that serves to deter future acts of aggression and not the workings of an organized scheme of penalties.”

If I may say, the worst of it is now over (but not entirely done.) At one o’clock, the Bishop led a small group discussion. Recalling the example of a woman in Les Miserables who was manipulated by the police into denouncing her lover for a crime punishable by death, the Bishop said “I am familiar with the words of Robert Reiner, ‘To fight crime the police must themselves resort to tactics which appear to mirror those of their foes, using violence and guile for just ends’, but I am not about to commend such tactics.” Well thank god.

Unfortunately, Fantine’s small group discussion at 3 was not well attended.

I do not doubt that many of you might be surprised that a literary figure such as me, who lived in the Napoleonic period, might be so vitally concerned with the welfare of animals, but such is the case, given Hugo’s own intense respect for all forms of life.

One participant, “Ms. Rita Joe, who was pursuing her doctoral studies at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore but who was a member of the Dene Nation and who was grown up in the Yukon Territory of Canada,” contributed to the conversation by quoting Jack London. This seriously short session was the last one on Wednesday.

Thursday was the last day of the conference and in the opening session, Fantine set out to argue that “it is a crime for society to make criminals and offenders out of women, and men, who sell their bodies for money. . .and I do not think that I will need to address you at length in order to demonstrate [my thesis’s] essential validity.” And indeed, she did not address the crowd for long at all, all she did was quote her own story at length. These last few chapters do not feel fleshed out.

Finally, it was time for the last plenary session. The Bishop delivered some closing words about reacclimating to life outside of prison. However, it was Javert who had the final word. He quoted (and no, I am not kidding) David Llyod George, who said, with regard to the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, “our function is to guide the path of reform and all trail-blazing is fraught with risk.”

#reading this was like having anvils dropped on one’s head in increasingly quick succession #thanks I hate it #bern reblogs #les miserables

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