dilemma, pickle, rock, hard place

as you all probably know already, i'm pretty big into prison issues, prison reform, prisoner's rights, etc. mostly because i love someone locked up but also because i have pretty strong opinions regarding human rights and i don't think there's a prison in existence in the entire world that doesn't violate those human rights on a daily basis.

so a few months back, i was the victim of what they deem a "violent" crime (although i was asleep when it occured, i'm not sure how well the adjective "violent" adds to what happened, but whatever). after about a week of fighting myself, i reported it and an investigation was launched and my world was flipped in all directions. the worst part of the whole thing, was that it was an old friend who'd committed the crime. so i knew if i reported it, all of those stories that i'd read about how the loved ones of prison inmates are affected by their incarceration, even just the accusation and the trial, would apply to a family i'd known since i was 18.

sometime last week a crown prosecutor (american translation: district attorney) called me and told me a plea of not guilty was entered and offered me the opportunity to give a victim's impact statement. i was pretty shocked, first cause they really have no evidence that i'm aware of other than my statement, and second, that they hadn't asked me to testify considering i was their only evidence. but i said i'd think about the vicitim impact statement anyway.

now here's where the problem lies. my entire being is defined by what i believe and i believe very strongly that there are only two purposes prison serves.  one, is to keep dangerous people off the streets to prevent them from victimizing anyone else and two, is for pure revenge. any other reason people spew, rehabilitation, "lesson" teaching, it's all a crock of shit. study after study after study serves up the same results: way more often than not, people leave prison more fucked up than they entered. no rehab or instruction is going on here. prison's main function is to reassure us that some sort of action has been taken. someone does something wrong, we can't do nothing, so we send them to prison and everyone feels like something's been done. warm fuckin' fuzzies all 'round. so, two purposes: keep 'em off the streets, and pure revenge.

being as i'm fairly sane, i don't feel revenge will give me any pleasure. revenge is a cheap, momentary relief and a lifetime of inner suffering. fuck that bullshit. revenge is for the weak. that leaves us with keeping him off the streets, and that's just pure and utter crap. the sentence he might get for something like this would see him back on the streets in very little time. so we take an already fucked up person, stick him in a terrifying, dehumanizing, unrealistic and humiliating institution for a little while, and then open the doors and let him go, time served. that, little kiddies, is also ludicrous. what lack of reason the man already has, will be compounded by the 8x5 cell walls and he'll come out more of a danger than when he went in.

this all begs the question, why not longer sentences? well, really, unless we lock every single offender up for life, we face the same risk. they get out some day and they get out more fucked up. to send a man away for life for what this guy did is absolute insanity.

and that leaves us, under the law, with nothing except a handful of ridiculously punitive shit, like house arrest and probation. what the fuck is that gonna do? nothing.

so basically, this boils down to me having to write a victim's statement to impact the sentencing of someone i don't think should be sentenced under the usual rule of law.

but then i thought about it, or rather, yapped about it with my mom, and i realized it's called a vicitm's "impact" statement. so, it's about how this impacted me. and the whole thing didn't impact me like everyone might think. as i mentioned before, it wasn't violent, it was pretty much just gross. what bothered me the most, and what i struggled with the most was that, here i am, someone who obsesses over prison issues, has two regular pen pals in prison, including one on death row, and the other whom i love more than anything on the planet, being put into a position that could end up with a man being sent to prison. someone for whom prison is most definitely not the answer. this is the shit that went through my head when i fought with myself over reporting it. i wondered how it would affect his family, how would he hold up in prison, blah blah. i dunno, maybe i should have been thinking more about myself in that situation, but really, it was just gross, like a perfect stranger farmer snotting in public and hitting your specs. just fucking gross.

i discussed all this with my mom and i realized, i can say all of this in my impact statement. i can say that i don't think he should go to prison, that i think he needs real help. and in the process i can have my very strong opinions on prison heard in a court of law.

seems ok i guess.


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Labels: mike

posted by Courtney at 1:24 a.m.

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