Martinus: Livets Bog, vol. 4, sect. 1239

1239. Now one will perhaps claim that "criminals", "thieves", "robbers", "swindlers", "confidence tricksters" and so on are very well aware that the life they lead is in conflict with the laws of society, and that society has therefore the right to "punish" all such transgressors of these laws. Indeed, it is true that "criminals" in actual fact are very well aware that they are in conflict with the laws of society. They have heard it reiterated more than sufficiently through religion, politics and the judicial system, but this knowledge is thus not their own experience. Its details cannot be perceived directly by "criminal" senses, and are thus not in contact with their own view of life. The view forced upon them by society is foreign to them. They are very well aware that if they do not comply with this view of society, they will be "punished" and branded as "criminals". But as long as the view of society is foreign to them and is therefore neither their own view nor is in keeping with this view, they must feel that they are "unjustly" treated every time they are imprisoned and "punished". They cannot regard or perceive their own way of acting as "criminal". It was of course completely in harmony with their own "concept of justice", regardless of whether it was a matter of "robbery", "fraud" or "revenge". They cannot therefore consider the view of life held by society to be an expression of the laws of life itself as they themselves understand them, an understanding that could be expressed more or less by the words: "Every man for himself". If not all beings with such an attitude defy the laws of society and become "criminals", but keep themselves more or less within the rules and points of view prescribed by these laws, it is due to a great extent only to fear of "punishment". These beings are thus in reality merely "trained" beings, almost in the same way as animals in the circus are trained.
It has, of course, long since been a well-known fact that society to a very great extent is maintained solely by this "training" through imprisonment and "punishment".