Last Tuesday TakeAction Minnesota hosted the Restore the Vote Coalition for a massive phone bank and door knock. We packed the office with 143 volunteers who called 3,824 formally incarcerated and convicted Minnesotans and knocked 131 doors on the East Side. Thank you to everyone who came out! We need everyone in on this fight if we are going to win in 2017. The following is a reflection I wrote after talking to victims’ rights advocate about the need for Justice.
I often say, we don’t have a Justice System, we have a Crime and Punishment system. But what’s the difference? Crime and punishment focuses on criminals and incarceration. Justice focuses on everyone, people who cause harm, people who are harmed, people who witness harm being done. Justice requires us to act.
Crime and punishment leaves us broken. Resources go into policing, trials and prison. But not into survivors, families and community. If we only focus on punishing people who commit crimes, we ignore everyone else. Leaving people (most often people in low income communities, people of color and women) broken and responsible to heal on their own. Justice is relational and demands that everyone including people who cause harm are included. That is how we find balance.
The symbol for Justice is a scale and begins with the idea that we are all connected. What happens to one impacts the other. So we can’t remove one side of the scale and put it in a box. That leaves the scale broken. What we have to do is find a way to invest in community so people who are harmed have a path towards healing. People who commit crimes are held accountable. Both healing and accountability require a relationship, not isolation from the community. Our liberation is bound to each other. If we only focus on punishment, we reserve punishment for everyone and healing for no one.
The leaders of the Justice 4 All Program believe in a Minnesota where our Justice system is restorative, not punitive. Where we can ask hard questions and find concrete, truly just solutions. Where survivors, families and communities are invested in. Where people who cause harm are held accountable to the community, not just put in a box to be forgotten. Join us as we continue to fight for a better Minnesota.
Sign up to volunteer with TakeAciton Minnesota as we fight to elect our endorsed candidates who support reforms to our Justice system. Join us on the doors and phones as we move Minnesota voters to get out and vote!
