Rethinking Our Choices, The Prison Industrial Complex

Much has been written about the school to prison pipeline.  Incarceration rates in our nation establish America as one of least free nations in the world.  When crime happens people have to decide to call the police or not.  The question I wish to pose here is; should there not be other options?  Must we support a system that is destructive to our collective culture in order to respond to individuals breaking social norms?

Story after story posted online over the past few months make it clear that calling the police can result in un-necessary escalation and can place even the caller at risk of being the victim of police excess. Individuals in the Trans Gendered community know well the fear that calling the police manifests. When they do so, they place themselves at risk of being arrested or beaten.

What would happen if communities manifested other options?  Collective community action to hold accountable perpetrators, engaging their families, friends and employers in plans to hold them accountable for their actions.

What would happen if communities established response teams for victims that would hold them safe from further violence, provide emotional support and help them receive emotional and financial compensation from those who victimized them?

What would happen if communities created programs that focused on restorative justice instead of punitive punishment?  Establishing a framework of community involvement that discards the ethic of “mind your own business?

It is clear that by only having a choice to call the police or not we are not serving our communities well, only supporting the perpetuation of a system that oppresses members of our community, victims and perpetrators alike.

So lets consider community based options, real solutions that manifest change beyond the destructive roles of the helpless victim and the demonized offender.

Lets have real choices that go beyond activating a system that is oppressive in its’ very nature!