We Are All Guilty

I have shop-lifted, lied, not fully declared, cut off, run, and knowingly.  At this moment in time and place, as a 30-something white woman with trappings of class, I'm not deemed criminal.  For no good reason.

I'm guilty.

Some of these offenses are considered legal, in certain times and places.  Some of these offenses are deemed illegal.  What constitutes crime shifts, continually.  Who is considered to be criminal shifts as well, although for at least two centuries, in North American, the overwhelming perception is that criminals are low-income brown people.

At various times, we've collectively decided that crimes are indicative of need.  Sometimes, we collectively decide to rehabilitate or aid the offender.  In recent centuries, we've decided to punish and isolate.  At times, there's an idea of redemption for an offender.  In other moments, that person is tortured and/or killed.

It's all rather arbitrary.  It all shifts and it all changes.  For these reasons, I don't think that incarceration has anything to do with guilt.  For those of us who work with incarcerated peoples, we should never feel like we're working with them despite.  "Despite their guilt, their offense."  We should never work with any individual or group and feel superior.

We're all guilty.

Prison guards are guilty of brutality against inmates.  Police are guilty of brutality against citizens.  Mayors, judges, teachers, and Presidents are guilty.  Soldiers kill civilians.  Presidents send drone strike attacks.  Governors order executions.  There is massive blood and brutality in their bureaucracy and yet those who work with them don't do so as a concession.

Work with inmates and better understand incarceration.  Understand its reality and its limitations.  Understand who is incarcerated and that it has everything to do with race and class and nothing to do with "crime."  Understand that crime is a nebulous concept at best.  Understand your own vision of justice and whether it is better served by rehabilitation or punishment.

Work with inmates to offer an under-served population resources.  Work with inmates to redistribute goods back to those who are denied what are considered rights to citizens.

We're all guilty.  If we hope to receive mercy and generosity from others, we need to offer it graciously.  We're all criminals, but only some of us are incarcerated.

My vision of justice is inclusion.  There are no longer prisons where some people are turned into guards and paid to brutalize those who are turned into prisoners.  There are no longer courts that penalize the poor and exonerate the rich.  There are no longer false premises of economic survival being deemed criminal while imperialism is considered innocent.  We're all recognized as guilty and we're all offered the possibility of redemption.