In a review of Lara Bazelon’s Rectify, Kalena Thomhave at The American Prospect writes—How to Help the Multiple Victims of a Wrongful Conviction. Restorative justice may open a path to healing for the exonerated, the state, and even the victim of the original crime.:
WHEN AN EXONERATION FOR A WRONGFUL CONVICTION OCCURS, the media’s images of the aftermath follow a familiar pattern: the exonerated prisoner—almost always a black man—leaving prison, or leaving the courthouse, all smiles. There may be balloons and signs waiting, as well as hugs from family members who may not have even touched their father, son, or husband in decades. It seems something like a rebirth, the injustice of the cell far behind. As old cases are reviewed and sometimes overturned, these scenes sporadically pepper the news cycle, so much so that the idea of a person being locked away for no good reason for upward of 40 years and then, suddenly, free becomes somewhat commonplace.
These happy scenes obscure what often comes next, and the other lives that were shattered due to a judicial system all too ready to lock up black men on shaky evidence or nothing more than eyewitness accounts. As Lara Bazelon writes in her book Rectify: The Power of Restorative Justice After Wrongful Conviction, “When the truth erupts with all its outsized consequences, exposing a system that is rife with venality, bias, and cruelty, the revelations are not freeing. A wrongful conviction is a psychological prison for everyone snagged in its net.”
Drawing from her own experiences as both a former public defender and former innocence project director, Bazelon aims to bring to light the perspective of everyonecaught up in that tangled web. First, of course, are the exonerated: The wrongfully convicted and exonerated are often dropped into an unfamiliar world without much guidance and little to no support. They might have health issues to deal with—stemming from diseases that went untreated in prison—as well as the psychological vestiges of being forced to live in a cage. They have to get a job. They have to pay rent. They have to wrestle with the truth that perhaps decades of their lives have been harshly and unforgivingly spent, wadded up like a piece of paper and tossed in the trash.
They are finally free, but when the state cuts the cord, sometimes that’s all it does. Not all states offer monetary restitution for stolen years, and some steadfastly refuse to admit the innocent should be freed at all, even in the face of solid evidence.
Bazelon doesn’t merely chronicle the harrowing experience of re-entry. She also reports on the perspectives of the lawyers, district attorneys, and other representatives of the judicial system, as well as the perspective of the victim of the original crime—the one who likely stood up in court and said, I know that’s him for certain, but turned out to be wrong. All of these actors together were variously impacted by the wrongful conviction. Using strategies and practices from the theory of restorative justice, which focuses on repairing the harm done to a community, she writes, they might all find a way toward mitigating the injustice of wrongful conviction together. [...]
TOP COMMENTS • HIGH IMPACT STORIES
QUOTATION
“I acknowledge Shakespeare to be the world’s greatest dramatic poet, but regret that no parent could place the uncorrected book in the hands of his daughter, and therefore I have prepared the Family Shakespeare …. Many words and expressions occur which are of so indecent a nature as to render it highly desirable that they should be erased … Expressions are omitted which cannot with propriety be read aloud in the family.” ~~Thomas Bowdler, Family Shakespeare (preface), 1818
TWEET OF THE DAY
BLAST FROM THE PAST
On this date at Daily Kos in 2010—Economic Outrage du Jour: Ripping Off the Jobless:
As if things were not bad enough for Americans who have lost their jobs and are among those lucky enough to be eligible for unemployment benefits, one company has become adept at keeping many of them from actually collecting on that lifeline. They've done it, according The New York Times, through a combination of delays, failure to show up at hearings, bogus appeals and other chicanery, including outright lies and fraud. The company reportedly handles 30 percent of all the nation's jobless claims. Jason DeParle writes:
The work has made Talx a boom business in a bust economy, but critics say the company has undermined a crucial safety net. Officials in a number of states have called Talx a chronic source of error and delay. Advocates for the unemployed say the company seeks to keep jobless workers from collecting benefits. ...
Wisconsin officials were among the first to complain, passing a law in 2005 to prevent what they called a common Talx practice: failing to respond to requests for information, only to appeal when workers got benefits. ...
Good ol' American entrepreneurialism at work. And lucrative, too. The guys who started Talx gobbled up seven companies in five years, then sold the blend three years ago for $1.4 billion. There are, of course, men and women in the hallowed halls of Congress who no doubt cheer the efforts this company makes. After all, they agree with their ideological predecessors of 75 years ago who fought against creating a benefits program for the jobless in the first place. Like Talx, they'll do just about anything to keep Americans on the ropes from getting relief since they view the benefits as creating lazy Americans, "hobos," as Nevada Rep. Dean Heller said six weeks ago.
On today’s Kagro in the Morning show: ALL NEW! AOC is raising $ for her colleagues. Is it revolutionary? Or is she going “establishment?!?!” Cops imagine there's such a thing as anti-antifa. (Psst, that’s just “fa.”) OK, is there oil in the ANWR or not? Mueller report: already a success!
RadioPublic|LibSyn|YouTube|Patreon|Square Cash (Share code: Send $5, get $5!)