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So, why do we dehumanize the incarcerated as a country? Well, why does military require boot camp? Why do sororities/fraternities require pledge periods/initiation? It’s to break esteem down into paths of loyalty. Usually for your labor or money. Sorry, but true. So in 1/7
carceral settings, abuse, deprivation, humiliation is critical for control when the population outnumbers the staff by many times. Also, it’s required that the outside population NOT be sympathetic to the incarcerated for this to work, right? 2/7
So in order to dismantle this entire system (and this is why ALL these peer support groups advocate healing) what is truly required is to RE-humanize from within, and redevelop our compassion from outside. We can still point out abuse, still call for changes in times 3/7
of emergency like now. But the necessity is to restructure our entire view of how we keep community safe. Empathy. Yes, ppl who kill ppl repeatedly/systematically will still need confinement of some kind, but they need intense mental health help, yes? Right now we don’t 4/7
even do that properly. We don’t examine/acknowledge trauma, abuse and normal struggles in time to help to heal. Guess what? We all have that. We all tend to use crappy tools to survive, it’s just the people with least resources get punished and further damaged for it. What 5/7
is my suggestion? While we all keep fighting, we make humanizing EVERYONE inside a carceral facility an absolute priority to the point of emotional empowerment. And repeat. We reach in, reach around, give. We normalize mental health services MORE & start WAY younger. If we 6/7
keep doing this I think our 2 mil loved ones inside will have the tools & modeling they need to take the house down from within while we start taking the boards down from the outside. It doesn’t have to be violent, just relentless. (i think i wrote this mostly for me, sigh?) 7/7
