This is a question I first asked myself eight years ago as I sat in county jail. I asked this question because of the harsh treatment I witnessed myself and others endure. I couldn’t understand why authority figures abused their power and justified their actions, because we committed crimes. I wrote a poem inspired by this question, to express how I felt. I have been incarcerated now for nine years, and I still wonder, am I not human? I still see people in authority abusing their power and working hard to maintain a system that does not work. A system that only seems to bring more harm, a system that needs to change.
Criminal vs. Human
Am I not human?
I raise my voice to protest.
My rights are violated, I contest.
But you jest at my request.
Because I am a criminal.
I broke the rule.
The fuel for you to be cruel.
With badges shining like a jewel.
A tool to make me look like a fool.
In what is alleged to be justice.
Am I not human?
Why do you ignore my cry?
I’m in need, but you deny.
Lie, saying I defy to comply.
Because I am a criminal.
Scum under your shoe.
Crushed beneath you.
If they knew, had a little clue.
The things you do.
Greatly should you rue.
Am I not human?
I bleed the same.
Carry a name.
Yet in my shame.
I am maimed.
By your game to tame.
And claim I am to blame.
Because I am a criminal.
Who committed ill.
Chill and swill the pill.
To kill my only will.
Forced to become nil.
Because no, I am not human…
Indeed, just a criminal.
In “Integrative Solutions to Interrelated Issues: A Multidisciplinary Look Behind the Cycle of Incarceration,” Nkechi Taifa and Catherine Beane write that “over two million people are currently incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails” (283). This is more than any country in the world. Incarceration has been the main solution for lawmakers to combat crime despite the billions of dollars it costs the American people a year. The American government has trained its citizens to believe that jail, prison, and years behind bars that include life sentences are the only solutions to crime. However, “tough on crime” polices that lock people up and throw away the key contributes to the never-ending cycle of incarceration. It is infused by unemployment, lack of education, poverty, poor housing, health issues, and a decrease of life opportunities. For decades, policy makers have solely focused on punishing offenders for crimes they have committed. The underlying reasons as to why crimes are committed are ignored in favor of long-term and life sentences. This does not ensure public safety, nor does it cause offenders to change their criminal thinking and behaviors.
A thirty-year sentence does not help an individual who committed robbery change their ways nor address the reasons behind their crime. A lie sentence for a woman who killed her spouse due to years of abuse does not protect, prevent, or heal her from the pain and suffering she endured from the person she once loved. These kinds of sentences bring more harm than good. I am not minimizing the crimes committed, but truth be told, offenders of murder, robbery, and other crimes are victims too. They are HUMAN too. Hurting people hurt others. Locking them up and giving them large amounts of time to do does not make anything better. There needs to be an increase on correction, reconciliation, healing, and restoration. This is where restorative justice comes in. In her article “Reform Movements in Justice,” Sarah Higinbotham says that restorative justice “focuses on the harm caused by criminal behavior rather than on guilt against the state.” This is what needs to occur for both offenders and victims of crime to overcome the trauma imposed on them. Restorative justice joins victims, offenders, and members of the community to converse about the crime committed and the harm it caused, how to make amends, and how the offender renters society as a fruitful member.
Restorative justice should include shorter sentences. Change is a choice that each individual has to make on their own. It cannot be forced by authority. A long-term or life sentence does not bring about change. During the Progressive Era, indeterminate sentences were thought to “incite prisoners to seek their own reform, motivated by the understanding that they had ‘the key to the prison in their own pocket,'” according to Higinbotham. This idea isn’t entirely true. In the state of California, a person with an indeterminate sentence has to go before Commissioners in a Board of Parole Hearing to get out of prison. If the Commissioners find an individual suitable for parole, the final decision is in the hands of the governor. Many have been denied suitability for parole despite showing that they are truly transformed and are no longer a threat to society. Shorter sentences should be incorporated with restorative justice, because it gives everyone the opportunity to share their story, their feelings on what happened, and they get to learn each person’s point-of-view. This brings people together through compassion, empathy, healing, understanding, insight, and closure. If people sincerely work hard, they should get their sentence reduced.
In order for sentencing to change and for restorative justice to work, there needs to be policy reform. The laws in California and the rest of the United States have for sentencing is dehumanizing. Alessandro De Giorgi, in “Five Theses on Mass Incarceration,” suggests “a call for massive public spending in public services and social programs” because it is “the only way to begin to address the social harms produced by the carceral state across the most disadvantaged regions of the American social space.” Life and long-term sentences are inhumane. Mass incarceration is a human rights issue. As I previously stated, it has brought more harm than good. The current criminal justice system has no justice at all. It is a broken system that breaks individuals and their families more than they’ve already been broken. We are human FIRST as incarcerated individuals. As humans, we make bad choices and mistakes. Nevertheless, we learn from them in order to grow, heal, make amends, and transform to become the best versions ourselves. Policy reform should change sentencing laws and implement restorative justice to give those who put in the effort a second chance to be part of society outside of prison.
Works Cited
De Giorgi, Alessandro. “Five Theses on Mass Incarceration.” Social Justice, Vol. 42, no. 2, 2015, pp.5-30
Higinbotham, Sarah. “Reform Movement in Justice.” Social History of Crime and Punishment in America: An Encyclopedia, Vol. 4 2012, pp. 1-8
Taifa, Nkechi, and Catherine Beane. “Integrative Solutions to Interrelated Issues: A Multidisciplinary Look Behind the Cycle of Incarceration.” Harvard Law & Review, Vol. 3, no. 2, July 2009, pp. 283-306
