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torquillThis has been bugging me on a low level for a long time, and it finally hit the "dammit" point. Because DAMMIT.
Want a marginalized group that's not cool to champion in SJW (Social Justice Warrior) circles? How about convicts?
People who broke the law. People who are in prison for breaking the law. People who were once in prison for breaking the law. Yes, they did something wrong... but they are still human beings. I think our society has lost sight of that fact. They are treated like lepers, like animals, like demons. We're afraid to stand by them in any way because that might mean we get tainted by their moral filth. Think I'm wrong? Look up how many lawsuits there have been about prison conditions in the last ten years. Ask an ex-con how easy it is to get a job. Did you just shiver a little at the thought of talking to an ex-con? What picture did you get in your head when you read that word?
We have created a system where all it takes is one grave mistake, and you become irredeemable. There is no built-in way to become a person again. Some people manage it, around the edges, but the vast majority are branded for life. Less-than-person. Dangerous beast. Untrustworthy. This is regardless of whatever sentence has been served, whatever official punishment has been satisfied.
As a result of our perception as a society, our justice system has become harsher. Mandatory sentences. Three-strikes laws. Public defenders are underfunded, and those without money are left to the mercy of the system. We have an incredible number of people in prison (25% of the incarcerated population of the world is in the U.S.), most of whom have few prospects even once they get out. But we don't care, because they're Unclean.
There are jokes about it. Snickers about sending people to "Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison". Rape is never a laughing matter, even when it's between men, even between men who have broken the law. IT'S NOT FUNNY. It's horrific. Even more horrific is that we have created an institution in which rape is an accepted part of life, just part of the punishment. Because that's what these people need: punishment. Lots and lots of it. We've handed prisons over to for-profit companies and looked the other way -- even our state officials look the other way, until the court system hauls on their leash and says "This is cruel and unusual". Sometimes. The rest of the time we have prisons which have turned into nightmares, where the rest of society says "let 'em turn on each other, and good riddance." They're our middens, where we toss the people we don't want, strip away their protections and let them try to survive in the base pecking order that exists there. Most are not "Lord of the Flies" material, but it's not easy to live in any of them, and the experience changes people forever.
We still call the departments that run this system "Corrections", yet the opportunities for correction are few and far between. Why have we decided it's acceptable to let prisons become torture devices rather than places to separate offenders from society, give them time and incentive to reflect and mend their ways (or, in the worst cases, just hold them away from those whom they might harm)? Prison, in the public mind, has become a place to break people... but broken people are not an asset, they aren't able to help build society and make it better. We just keep churning out broken people, whose spirits are crushed or whose whole being is geared toward surviving the system. Those attributes don't do anything other than collectively drag us down further.
A friend of a friend committed suicide rather than go to prison. He decided death was preferable to submitting to that meat grinder. What kind of world have we built where an intelligent man looks at prison as a fate literally worse than death?
When you get out, it's not a lot better. As an extreme example, California's laws around sex offenders have bothered me for a long time; the courts finally ruled that we can't simply exile them to living under freeway underpasses and wandering the streets at night. But the stigma toward sex offenders who have been released from prison is greater than someone who was convicted of murder. People don't check a map online to see what murder convicts are living near them. People don't pass laws forbidding them to live within 500 feet of anyone else. I always feel strange saying this as a survivor of sexual abuse, but what we do to convicted sex offenders makes me ill. And do you know how easy it is to get on the list? Indecent exposure. Having sex with someone who's 17 when you're 18. Possession (not manufacture) of child porn. Many of the offenses have no direct victim, and many offenders did nothing toward children -- yet they're still branded with the same mark as serial child molesters, and cast out. It's a black mark which ruins people's lives forever, and we hand it out far too freely.
The treatment of convicted criminals is a social justice issue. It's a racial justice issue, because black and Hispanic prisoners make up over half of the prison population. It's an economic justice issue, because poor people are more likely to go to prison. It's a feminist issue, because the fate of female prisoners and ex-cons is paid even less attention than that of their male counterparts, and female characteristics are seen as "weak" in prisoners of both sexes. It's an LGBT issue, because a different sexual identity opens one to dangerous conditions in prison, and trans people are heavily discriminated against and often in physical danger. It is a human rights issue, because convicted criminals are human beings, whatever they might have done.
I'm sick of this society choosing vengeance and punishment over understanding and compassion. I'd be tempted to take the "Love Thy Neighbor" shirt and add "Your ex-con neighbor" and "Your sex-offender neighbor"... except that the reaction I would get, even from progressive SJW types, would be a reflexive recoil from associating with lepers. Just writing this post is going to get me a lot of side-eye. You don't have to believe that what they did was right, or acceptable, or moral. You don't have to trust that they will come out of their legal punishment reformed into a model member of society. But you do have to see them as fellow human beings, who deserve the same fundamental rights and respect that we all deserve. It's the human thing to do.
Want a marginalized group that's not cool to champion in SJW (Social Justice Warrior) circles? How about convicts?
People who broke the law. People who are in prison for breaking the law. People who were once in prison for breaking the law. Yes, they did something wrong... but they are still human beings. I think our society has lost sight of that fact. They are treated like lepers, like animals, like demons. We're afraid to stand by them in any way because that might mean we get tainted by their moral filth. Think I'm wrong? Look up how many lawsuits there have been about prison conditions in the last ten years. Ask an ex-con how easy it is to get a job. Did you just shiver a little at the thought of talking to an ex-con? What picture did you get in your head when you read that word?
We have created a system where all it takes is one grave mistake, and you become irredeemable. There is no built-in way to become a person again. Some people manage it, around the edges, but the vast majority are branded for life. Less-than-person. Dangerous beast. Untrustworthy. This is regardless of whatever sentence has been served, whatever official punishment has been satisfied.
As a result of our perception as a society, our justice system has become harsher. Mandatory sentences. Three-strikes laws. Public defenders are underfunded, and those without money are left to the mercy of the system. We have an incredible number of people in prison (25% of the incarcerated population of the world is in the U.S.), most of whom have few prospects even once they get out. But we don't care, because they're Unclean.
There are jokes about it. Snickers about sending people to "Federal pound-me-in-the-ass prison". Rape is never a laughing matter, even when it's between men, even between men who have broken the law. IT'S NOT FUNNY. It's horrific. Even more horrific is that we have created an institution in which rape is an accepted part of life, just part of the punishment. Because that's what these people need: punishment. Lots and lots of it. We've handed prisons over to for-profit companies and looked the other way -- even our state officials look the other way, until the court system hauls on their leash and says "This is cruel and unusual". Sometimes. The rest of the time we have prisons which have turned into nightmares, where the rest of society says "let 'em turn on each other, and good riddance." They're our middens, where we toss the people we don't want, strip away their protections and let them try to survive in the base pecking order that exists there. Most are not "Lord of the Flies" material, but it's not easy to live in any of them, and the experience changes people forever.
We still call the departments that run this system "Corrections", yet the opportunities for correction are few and far between. Why have we decided it's acceptable to let prisons become torture devices rather than places to separate offenders from society, give them time and incentive to reflect and mend their ways (or, in the worst cases, just hold them away from those whom they might harm)? Prison, in the public mind, has become a place to break people... but broken people are not an asset, they aren't able to help build society and make it better. We just keep churning out broken people, whose spirits are crushed or whose whole being is geared toward surviving the system. Those attributes don't do anything other than collectively drag us down further.
A friend of a friend committed suicide rather than go to prison. He decided death was preferable to submitting to that meat grinder. What kind of world have we built where an intelligent man looks at prison as a fate literally worse than death?
When you get out, it's not a lot better. As an extreme example, California's laws around sex offenders have bothered me for a long time; the courts finally ruled that we can't simply exile them to living under freeway underpasses and wandering the streets at night. But the stigma toward sex offenders who have been released from prison is greater than someone who was convicted of murder. People don't check a map online to see what murder convicts are living near them. People don't pass laws forbidding them to live within 500 feet of anyone else. I always feel strange saying this as a survivor of sexual abuse, but what we do to convicted sex offenders makes me ill. And do you know how easy it is to get on the list? Indecent exposure. Having sex with someone who's 17 when you're 18. Possession (not manufacture) of child porn. Many of the offenses have no direct victim, and many offenders did nothing toward children -- yet they're still branded with the same mark as serial child molesters, and cast out. It's a black mark which ruins people's lives forever, and we hand it out far too freely.
The treatment of convicted criminals is a social justice issue. It's a racial justice issue, because black and Hispanic prisoners make up over half of the prison population. It's an economic justice issue, because poor people are more likely to go to prison. It's a feminist issue, because the fate of female prisoners and ex-cons is paid even less attention than that of their male counterparts, and female characteristics are seen as "weak" in prisoners of both sexes. It's an LGBT issue, because a different sexual identity opens one to dangerous conditions in prison, and trans people are heavily discriminated against and often in physical danger. It is a human rights issue, because convicted criminals are human beings, whatever they might have done.
I'm sick of this society choosing vengeance and punishment over understanding and compassion. I'd be tempted to take the "Love Thy Neighbor" shirt and add "Your ex-con neighbor" and "Your sex-offender neighbor"... except that the reaction I would get, even from progressive SJW types, would be a reflexive recoil from associating with lepers. Just writing this post is going to get me a lot of side-eye. You don't have to believe that what they did was right, or acceptable, or moral. You don't have to trust that they will come out of their legal punishment reformed into a model member of society. But you do have to see them as fellow human beings, who deserve the same fundamental rights and respect that we all deserve. It's the human thing to do.
