Beyond criminalization
In an April, 2016 interview with Krista Tippett, Michelle Alexander, the civil rights attorney, mother, and advocate for racial justice asks the question, “Who do we want to become: Beyond the new Jim Crow?” As I have mentioned in previous blogs, the incarceration rate of our African American kids and adults as well as poor people of other races continues to escalate. Once convicted of a felony, a person has a very difficult time obtaining a job, housing or otherwise building a life for themselves. Ms. Alexander points out that one in two black people has or will have someone from their family in prison. One in four Caucasian women will have someone in jail. Additionally, she points out that there are an increasing number of individuals and organizations who are advocating to change the practice of labeling so many as criminals and to offer treatment and help to individuals instead. We all need to join this fight. We know that labeling someone a criminal makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to craft a decent life for themselves and their families. Jails have become the place where we send addicts, those with mental illness as well as those we have been taught to dislike.
I am, of course, delighted that so many more people in the United States are insisting that we put the just back in justice. Being angry at someone or taking away rights and treating them as a third class citizen has not been shown to be an effective approach. Yet, it is ironic that some of us who are standing up for the disenfranchised are sometimes the same ones who want those responsible for the reprehensible treatment of some of our brothers and sisters to be subjected to the very system we know has failed so many. For example, when a police officer directly kills teenagers as in Ferguson and Baltimore there is a call for charges and conviction. This is very understandable. We all want some public recognition by the authorities that this sort of behavior – this killing of our children and others – is unacceptable and will be stopped. It was reported that in Ferguson when the jury failed to indict Darren Wilson in Michael Brown’s death, violence flared/erupted.
Of course, I understand why it seems only “fair” that the police officers and other officials be held to the same standard of justice as those we the community determine feel are the least of the least. Yet, we need to ask the same questions we are demanding of our police and other elected officials. These questions include:
Do we lock up these police officers and symbolically throw away the key? This action will ruin the life of the person we lock up, ruin or severely damage the life of his or her family, and require a great deal of public money to charge, convict and keep this person in a cage for years.
Do we want to react or show others a more loving, effective approach to justice?
If we are going to create yet another throw-away person why not just kill them and be done with it? Our actions say: “You are worthless. You will always be worthless. You deserve us to be disconnected from love and be mistreated.”
If we are going to react out of love and change the system what would that change look like?
What is the job we want and expect police and other in the judicial system to do?
All the advocates for change in our judicial system say that we must stop defining people by their most thoughtless, sometimes cruel and/or stupid behavior. We know that all of we humans are sometimes just plain stupid, self-righteous, or have some other impairment which does not allow us to see that we are all necessary and important members of the whole.
Sometimes some of we humans are so stuck in our self-centered, cruel behavioral pattern that there seems to be little hope that we can find a way for them to connect or reconnect to the rest of the community. Many factors affect how the brain functions and, thus, what thoughts a person has. There are amazing discoveries proving that the anti-social behavior of individuals with such diseases or conditions as Autism, Alzheimer’s, depression, and brain tumors among others may prevent a person from making positive changes. Certainly in my years of being a professional counselor I have met individuals who were frighteningly dangerous. I have worked for/with individuals who were professional hit people, serial abusers or unable to stop their compulsive, obsessive “need” to seek sexual contact with pre-pubescent children. None of these people ordered up from the general store which has now morphed into Amazon a dysfunctional brain which is unable to consider the sacredness of others. Some of these individuals may need to be in a safe, loving environment where they are unable to harm themselves or others.
I have no idea what changes are possible for Darren Wilson. Let us suppose, for a minute that his behavior in shooting Michael Brown was consistent with learned behavior and beliefs which the community expect him as a police officer to do. Let us further suppose that the goal is to change his behavior and his beliefs. Notice that the goal is not punishment. We, as a community, could:
Make him a member of a think tank to design a more loving and effective program for those not now making healthy decisions and who are on the road to a life of violating the rights of themselves and others. He would be working with trained, research scientists who would teach him the rules and parameters of solid, scientific research.
Develop and co-teach a course on non-violence to junior high and high school students.
Teach a class in a workshop setting whose task it was to develop a program for dealing with troubled individuals.
Require that he get a degree in philosophy. Some research studies have shown that teaching philosophy courses to homeless people helped them to begin to think differently and, to eventually make healthier decisions.
Identify and invite him to chart the development of anti-social or racist beliefs.
None of these suggestions would cost as much or more than our current judicial system. It would be a win-win for the entire community.
Once a new program was instituted we would need to ensure it was consistently applied to all people regardless of race, gender, or financial status. This might require the public education and re-training of some attorneys or mediators who would make the same salary as teachers and other professionals.
There are many pieces to this system. One also would have to deal with the unemployment of all those associated with the very expensive, privatized prison/jail system in the United States.
Another piece is the need to engage the help of forgiveness experts such as those who had friends and relatives die in the shooting in the South Carolina Church. What makes these people able to formulate such a unconventional, loving response? Can they teach this approach?
Written April 25, 2016
In an April, 2016 interview with Krista Tippett, Michelle Alexander, the civil rights attorney, mother, and advocate for racial justice asks the question, “Who do we want to become: Beyond the new Jim Crow?” As I have mentioned in previous blogs, the incarceration rate of our African American kids and adults as well as poor people of other races continues to escalate. Once convicted of a felony, a person has a very difficult time obtaining a job, housing or otherwise building a life for themselves. Ms. Alexander points out that one in two black people has or will have someone from their family in prison. One in four Caucasian women will have someone in jail. Additionally, she points out that there are an increasing number of individuals and organizations who are advocating to change the practice of labeling so many as criminals and to offer treatment and help to individuals instead. We all need to join this fight. We know that labeling someone a criminal makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to craft a decent life for themselves and their families. Jails have become the place where we send addicts, those with mental illness as well as those we have been taught to dislike.
I am, of course, delighted that so many more people in the United States are insisting that we put the just back in justice. Being angry at someone or taking away rights and treating them as a third class citizen has not been shown to be an effective approach. Yet, it is ironic that some of us who are standing up for the disenfranchised are sometimes the same ones who want those responsible for the reprehensible treatment of some of our brothers and sisters to be subjected to the very system we know has failed so many. For example, when a police officer directly kills teenagers as in Ferguson and Baltimore there is a call for charges and conviction. This is very understandable. We all want some public recognition by the authorities that this sort of behavior – this killing of our children and others – is unacceptable and will be stopped. It was reported that in Ferguson when the jury failed to indict Darren Wilson in Michael Brown’s death, violence flared/erupted.
Of course, I understand why it seems only “fair” that the police officers and other officials be held to the same standard of justice as those we the community determine feel are the least of the least. Yet, we need to ask the same questions we are demanding of our police and other elected officials. These questions include:
Do we lock up these police officers and symbolically throw away the key? This action will ruin the life of the person we lock up, ruin or severely damage the life of his or her family, and require a great deal of public money to charge, convict and keep this person in a cage for years.
Do we want to react or show others a more loving, effective approach to justice?
If we are going to create yet another throw-away person why not just kill them and be done with it? Our actions say: “You are worthless. You will always be worthless. You deserve us to be disconnected from love and be mistreated.”
If we are going to react out of love and change the system what would that change look like?
What is the job we want and expect police and other in the judicial system to do?
All the advocates for change in our judicial system say that we must stop defining people by their most thoughtless, sometimes cruel and/or stupid behavior. We know that all of we humans are sometimes just plain stupid, self-righteous, or have some other impairment which does not allow us to see that we are all necessary and important members of the whole.
Sometimes some of we humans are so stuck in our self-centered, cruel behavioral pattern that there seems to be little hope that we can find a way for them to connect or reconnect to the rest of the community. Many factors affect how the brain functions and, thus, what thoughts a person has. There are amazing discoveries proving that the anti-social behavior of individuals with such diseases or conditions as Autism, Alzheimer’s, depression, and brain tumors among others may prevent a person from making positive changes. Certainly in my years of being a professional counselor I have met individuals who were frighteningly dangerous. I have worked for/with individuals who were professional hit people, serial abusers or unable to stop their compulsive, obsessive “need” to seek sexual contact with pre-pubescent children. None of these people ordered up from the general store which has now morphed into Amazon a dysfunctional brain which is unable to consider the sacredness of others. Some of these individuals may need to be in a safe, loving environment where they are unable to harm themselves or others.
I have no idea what changes are possible for Darren Wilson. Let us suppose, for a minute that his behavior in shooting Michael Brown was consistent with learned behavior and beliefs which the community expect him as a police officer to do. Let us further suppose that the goal is to change his behavior and his beliefs. Notice that the goal is not punishment. We, as a community, could:
Make him a member of a think tank to design a more loving and effective program for those not now making healthy decisions and who are on the road to a life of violating the rights of themselves and others. He would be working with trained, research scientists who would teach him the rules and parameters of solid, scientific research.
Develop and co-teach a course on non-violence to junior high and high school students.
Teach a class in a workshop setting whose task it was to develop a program for dealing with troubled individuals.
Require that he get a degree in philosophy. Some research studies have shown that teaching philosophy courses to homeless people helped them to begin to think differently and, to eventually make healthier decisions.
Identify and invite him to chart the development of anti-social or racist beliefs.
None of these suggestions would cost as much or more than our current judicial system. It would be a win-win for the entire community.
Once a new program was instituted we would need to ensure it was consistently applied to all people regardless of race, gender, or financial status. This might require the public education and re-training of some attorneys or mediators who would make the same salary as teachers and other professionals.
There are many pieces to this system. One also would have to deal with the unemployment of all those associated with the very expensive, privatized prison/jail system in the United States.
Another piece is the need to engage the help of forgiveness experts such as those who had friends and relatives die in the shooting in the South Carolina Church. What makes these people able to formulate such a unconventional, loving response? Can they teach this approach?
Written April 25, 2016
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