Brilliant!
Since my own incarceration, and seeing the undeniable racist disparities and the unbelievable criminalization of poverty, I myself started to ask many of these same questions and came to a few truths:
- Prisons and Jails are a TERRIBLE way to create accountability, restoration, or healing. They literally incentivize perpetrators to never admit wrongdoing and incentivize victims to confuse punishment with healing.
- Prisons and Jails are a TERRIBLE way to create better social outcomes for incarcerated people. Instead of being a place that helps people learn to overcome addiction, cope with mental illness, or learn pro-social skills they are gladiator schools deeply invested in generating exactly the violence Justice Aquilinia called for.
- Incarceration is a TERRIBLE and COSTLY substitute for ensuring all citizens have access to meaningful social support and a real and progressive social safety net and system of taxation. Most crime is grounded in poor education, poverty, and place *** This is NOT an excuse it is an explanation*** We know better community support and connection results in better outcomes.
Anyway, thanks for this, would love to have you on my podcast sometime to discuss your thoughts more completely!
