justice and reparation

Justice is not just punishment and retribution.

The other side of the coin is reparation.

paragliders off Whidbey Island this summer

Having spent six weeks in prison as a nurse I’ve been especially attentive to articles and radio shows that talk about incarceration and punishment. I’ve thought a lot about the men I see and talk to who live their years behind metal bars. Thousands. I contemplate their sentences and their crimes. I’m called to the scene after they’ve been pepper-sprayed. A young man is brought in to me when he wants to kill himself. I call the doctor, and they lock him up in a supervised cell with a mattress on the floor, in a special restrained gown.

 I check the man pacing in the cell. Open your mouth. I want to see if you’ve swallowed the pill. Then diabetic line. The men say thank you and please.

80% of them are from 23 to 44 years old. I read about the war on drugs, and see how by the thousands we lock them up. Non-violent offenders we call them. Then they get in here and do harder drugs than they ever did on the outside. And get more violent. The United States incarcerates 2.7% of its population. The next highest nation jails 0.6% of theirs. We imprison more people, by far, than any other nation on earth.

I wonder about punishment. And what good it does. Who does it make feel better? What does it repair?

Our country is based on this religious ideal, that the wicked must be punished. So we jail our young men. And when they come out, they are no more equipped to live any better life. In fact they are angrier, more aggressive, less socially skilled or normalized, more frustrated, more apt to snap, or withdraw, or commit an even greater crime.

What about education? What about job training, anger management, emotional literacy, sex education, writing catharsis, financial instruction, social skills, and teaching to care for self?

What about reparation? – Working to give back a gift commensurate to the one you’ve taken, even if grossly inadequate. Does it not do a human good the opportunity to repay, in whatever way possible, the debt? This debt which he can never really repay, but perhaps make symbol and amends? Make a path for his redemption? Perhaps the family, individual, or neighborhood wronged could be the personal recipient of these efforts to repair. Money, art, books authored, songs, furniture built, buildings, personal reparations. Can the soul ever redeem itself?

Are we not all indebted in some never-repayable way, but which it does all parties good to at least try to give restitution? Is not some of our effort valid? Does not this effort change us in some way deeply for the better?

There are and were simpler tribal cultures, where the elders asked the offending member to do a work, allowing his psyche a path back into the mainstream.

I’m not talking blood restitution. That’s punishment. I’m not so sure I want to punish.

I want to make safe. For everyone. Some people DO belong in prison. That small percentage who, no matter what, will continue to kill, or hurt, without a second thought. No remorse. Yes, keep them apart to keep us safe. Not to punish. To keep us safe.

The others, non-violent, greater majority, let’s mend their souls. Address deficiencies directly. Not leave people in cells to rot. In gowns restrained. Yelling and crying. Mental, social, emotional issues must be addressed. Coping skills, mechanisms, patterns seen, taught, encouraged.

These our brothers, sons, neighbors, uncles, nephews, cousins, somebody’s child, our own selves. Somebody’s future husband. Somebody’s future dad. 

I hear about a Scandinavian country that is closing down the majority of its prisons. They’ve found that their education programs are so effective, that their recidivism rates are almost non-existent. Offenders are housed and rehabilitated in facilities resembling the communities and patterns to which they will soon return. Equipped with new skills.

All these thoughts pass through my mind when I hear a program on NPR (National Public Radio) saying:

 

Justice is not just punishment and retribution.

The other side of the coin is reparation.