Healing Justice

It's not that I'm not learning anything. That's not why I'm not writing. It's that I'm learning so much, every single day, that I don't even know where to start.

I'm working 4 days a week at the American Friends Service Committee in Oakland. I'm trying to put together a resource list of all of the healing/restorative justice programs in the Bay Area. I prefer the term "healing justice" simply because I think it is more heartfelt, less technical, more human.

I read the book Beyond Prisons by my supervisor Laura Magnani. It was a book that really forced me to wake up. Everything about our justice system is totally soulless. It is all about technicalities and procedures. We forget about the victims until we feel their pain may be able to ensure a hands down guilty verdict or a harsher sentence. Lawyers, cops, judges, and even career criminals are forced to seperate themselves from the emotions of those around them. They are forced to become robots forgetting what it is like to be a human being in order to play their part correctly.

It's sad. I've always been against the death penalty. But did you know you could put a kid, a 14 year-old in jail for life without parole. Is a 14 year-old irredeemable? Was he inherently evil, is that why he was in jail? Or did a system fail him? Could he learn to reconnect with people and be honest with himself? He has at least 50 or so years to try! And a 40 year-old may have less time to do the same, but it is possible.

I think the Quaker in me has been awakened. Life without parole seems ridiculous, and inhumane. Nina, my friend from the Netherlands says that their the longest someone can be locked up for is 20 years. That's it, so whoever is in charge of helping him while he is in prison better do a really good job reconnecting him to the world. The Quakers are one of the few voices against life without parole and after looking at the system from various view points so far this summer, I'm going to join them. These people are human beings not simply criminals. It's time to look deeper into their lives and hearts, and teach them to reconnect.

Why should people spend years in jail for drug offenses and petty thefts. Why are people using drugs? Because they are lonely and fearful. Because they need to escape. Because they feel lost and don't know how to reconnect or ask for help, so they run away. Why do people steal? Because they want respect or attention. Because they need the money to provide for their family. Because they want to hang out with the cool kids and be connected to others. Because they are addicted to drugs. Seems like locking them up and then letting them out into a world where they are destined to fail after being disconnected from their families and social networks, with a record is a recipe for disaster. The cycle is just going to keep repeating itself.

Tomorrow I'm going to Sacramento to a public hearing on lethal injection and then a march to the capital to talk with state legislators.

It's weird to think that this is the first time that I've actually acted on something that I feel is controversial. I'm sure that I've acted on other things that just felt right that others disagreed with, but this time I know that I'm going to have to open some eyes and touch some hearts to get my message across. This won't be an easy one to sell, and afterwards no life without parole will be even harder. But it's the right thing. A human being is a human being. And everyone has the right to change, and everyone has the ability deep within as long as we give them the tools and support.

Those are my thoughts for now. Next post maybe I'll talk about the Pride Parade yesterday in San Fransisco. I totally cried. Parades usually make me cry.