Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (https://jjie.org/tag/john-lash/page/2/)
Rape is not sex. No matter how superficially similar the acts might seem, they are fundamentally different. Most reasonable people would agree, and in our society rape is considered a crime. There is one place where things are different though: prison. Somehow, at least to many people, rapes that take place in that context are somehow different.
I joined the Army in 1984, at least in part because I hated high school. I couldn’t stand the drudgery of boring classes, which, at least to my adolescent mind, were a big waste of my time. Even though my parents encouraged me to attend college, I was having none of it. My idea of what school looked like was pretty entrenched, and it took going to prison to get me back in the classroom. At the time, 1986, I had been in for not quite a year, and a lot of people told me that going to college would look good to the parole board.
There is that moment after a conflict, maybe it’s an argument or some harsh words, when we want to reconnect with the other person, but we don’t know exactly how. We are embarrassed sometimes, or maybe afraid to be rejected or hurt again. Maybe we are in pain or ashamed, but we want to repair the relationship. We desire to move forward. This impulse is at the heart of restorative justice, and it occurs in conflicts large and small.
I have an unshakeable faith in the human potential for growth. Over and over I have seen men change: through religion, education, friendship, and many other avenues. I have also learned not to write someone off because they appear (and are!) difficult to be with. It is literally impossible to say who will respond to help. In 2007, I was in a four-day program called Kairos, a Christian ministry that was focused on bringing agape, usually translated into English as “love,” to men serving time in prison.
These days are exciting ones for youth justice in the United States. Several factors have come together to influence the evolution of the field, including the economic downturn, a recognition that traditional models have failed, and a wide variety of new alternatives. David Muhammad, the former chief probation officer of Alameda County California, and the former deputy commissioner of probation in New York City, writes in an August 28, post for New America Media, A Roadmap to the Future of Juvenile Justice, about programs around the country that are working. He focuses on several interrelated approaches. The first, Positive Youth Development, flips the usual approach of criminal justice, which views kids involved with the system as problems to be fixed, on its head.
My first “live” Restorative Circle happened a few days ago, in Rochester, New York. The circle started with seven people, and it ended with more than 50. It had really started a few weeks before. My partner and I had been hurt by an email that I had received, an email that we perceived as judgmental and prejudiced. The author sat across from us, along with one of her friends.
A lot of people complain about youth today, but few do anything about it. That isn’t a criticism, but an observation. Kids who get into trouble usually don’t jump straight into full blown crime. They start small and work their way up. They are the kids who have problems at school perhaps, or run the streets committing petty vandalism or fighting.
Receiving a life sentence is a shock. When the judge said to me, in 1985, “I sentence you to life in prison as computed by the State Board of Pardons and Paroles,” I did not really comprehend his words. I was literally in shock. Afterwards, my attorney met with me briefly. He told me that since I had pleaded guilty and was still a teenager the parole board would probably let me out in seven years.
This past weekend I made a trip to Kentucky with my girlfriend, and on the way back we travelled through the north Georgia mountains. Not far from our route was Lee Arrendale State Prison, in Alto, Georgia. I was incarcerated there from 1985 to 1989, and it was by far the worst prison I did time in. Today it is very different, housing women instead of male teens, and with only a few of the buildings left that I knew. As I neared the prison my body grew cold and numb, my heart rate and breathing increased, and I seemed to have trouble thinking straight.
“Everybody in there is innocent, right?” This statement, or some variation of it, usually followed by laughter, comes up in a lot of conversations when I talk about doing time. It appears to be a common perception, verging on a stereotype, that prisons are full of people proclaiming their innocence. My experience was actually the opposite. Most men in prison admitted they had done something that led to their situation. More common was a story about extenuating circumstances, or how, even though they were guilty, the police and courts had abused their power somehow to prove it.