There is a dissonance issue that we still need to grapple with. The Left must stop trying so hard to separate people who are and are not criminals. Then, we need to revisit and process our Punishment kink. Justice does not now, nor has it ever come from the Criminal Legal System. The CLS can only offer retribution, which is something different. Police, prosecutors, judges, corrections officers only serve to uphold the system. That's their only real job. Keep boots on necks.
The need to seek justice for harms done is real, but the "justice" that many of us are seeking isn't an effective solution, and more often than not only serves to further reinforce systemic harm, spreading it around like a virus.
Criminality is subjective, and also, only a symptom. It's not the root disease, and until we stop frothing at the mouths to send people we don't like to jail or prison instead of dismantling those systems and building something that actually helps, we're going to be stuck in this cycle of never-ending horrors.
The Prison Industrial Complex must be abolished completely. That means that we need to start being a little bit more creative when it comes to what we want to see done with people who cause harm.
In order to make progress, we're going to have to face the fact that even people who have committed grave harms and injustices still have basic human rights.
As long as they breathe, and with the right approach, people can learn and grow. And even if some of them can't or choose not to, not trying is a reflection on us, not them.
When humans are kids, experts agree that we do not have the right to physically punish them or put them in cages when they mess up. Pet trainers also generally agree that you cannot punish an animal into good behavior. Between childhood and adulthood, however, there is a disconnect that happens with our brains, and suddenly it's justified and expected to use such practices on living humans that we perceive as adults.
I know what I am saying is counter to what we have been taught, but we don't have the natural right to confine or harm someone simply because they have done bad things. It's not about whether they deserve to be rehabilitated based on their merits. It's about the fact that our collective soul deserves the chance to help people instead of putting them in locked facilities to be assaulted, murdered, bullied, and extorted. We deserve a social agreement that recognizes that all people should have their basic humanity respected.
People can be reformed. Systems of Oppression cannot.
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