Some of my friends and family don't really understand what it is that I do, or why I do it. They get it that I'm trying to make a difference based on what I believe in, and they love and support me for it, but I don't think they completely understand how for example I can spend a day in a prison with a room full of maximum security prisoners. Which is exactly what I did two weeks ago as part of a work-related event.
I've made my views very clear about how our criminal justice system is riddled with flaws, is discriminatory and is for the most part broken. It makes it easier to understand when you take a look at some basic facts: that the U.S. is 5% of the world's population but 25% of its prisoners, that African Americans and people of color are grossly over-represented it the system, although there is no evidence of them committing more crimes; that 225 people have been exonerate after having been convicted of a crime based on DNA evidence - 17 of them served time on death row! There are so many more facts like this, showing that what we've been doing isn't working. Have our "get tough on crime" policies and exploding prison population made you feel safer? More on this in the future.
So, the prison event I attended was actually organized by the prisoners. They spent over 12 months planning for a day-long seminar where experts from the outside came in to share information about relevant criminal justice issues with them. But what many people find hard to believe is that we ended up learning from the inmates. We learned about how they have been active for decades through their prison branch of the NAACP, helping set policy to improve the criminal justice system, to help the communities they come from, to help youth from their communities not end up with the same fate in the same broken system. In fact, I got a letter from them today, including a local newsletter that said the prisoners had donated $1000 to a restorative justice program to help at risk youth in a local community get summer jobs and begin to improve their neighborhoods. I learned that given the long time these inmates had served, many had devoted their lives to self-improvement, some had turned to the buddhist way of life and thought, others dedicated themselves to acquiring legal knowledge. They were some of the most hospitable event organizers - and criminal justice experts - that I've ever met.
I left feeling melancholy and torn. Yes, some of the men I met that day have done terrible things, things I will never be able to justify. But many of them were in their 50's and 60's, many have already served long sentences and are paying their dues for the mistakes they made in their youth. They were even giving back to the community from behind bars. I left asking myself questions - some of them rhetorical - that I want to share with you so we can begin understand: What will happen to these men when they leave prison? Will society shun them forever? Will they have the skills and support they need to be re-integrated into society, get a job and become productive members of their communities? Or will they go back to the same scenario that probably cause them to turn to crime? And why do we have an elaborate system of jails and prisons if we intend to keep punishing people who have supposedly paid their dues when they come out?
And maybe I would be less outraged if it was a system that treated everyone equally. Then it would be a broken system that we would all have a stake in fixing. But it's a system that discriminates against the poor and people of color from the get go.
We live in a country that prides itself on the Constitution, on the principles of justice and equality. If we lived elsewhere, in a country that didn't always boast about its system of justice and fairness, I wouldn't be so outraged. So we have to stop pretending that we have already lived up to these principles, and actually begin working to live up to them.
And there is such a thing as redemption and rehabilitation. But we’ve stopped investing in that, we’ve stopped believing in that. The concept of throwing human beings away, no matter how flawed they may be, has to be done away with.
