Justice: The idea, The Word, The Legend.

Justice.

Justice is a word we hear echoing through the atrium of John Jay. Justice is defined as "the quality of being just, equitable, and morally right." On the walls of the 100 Centre Street court house, we see themes of equality, of men receiving their liberties, and of freedom and justice. Many would say the words etched into the walls of 100 Centre Street are the foundations of our country and the basis of justice. I would say they are hypocrisy. We, as a society, etch these sayings and words into a wall to show our "just nature and righteous agendas." And yet, who is carving these words into the walls? Is it the people who are thrown into the adversarial system? Or are these words thrown upon this building by those in society who have never seen the inside of a jail cell? One quote caught my attention above the rest. Engraved into the wall was "justice shall be denied no one." How ironic is this statement when one considers that just feet away, injustice is being carried out in the very building these words were meant for.

Our tour of 100 Centre Street was filled with discussions of injustice and inequality. However, I was very interested in the way we discussed approaching change in the justice system. Thomas brought up a point that caught my interest. How would a judge feel if his daughter was in this system? Would he be comfortable allowing his daughter to be processed the way he processes hundreds of human beings daily? And of course, there is this issue with the word "processed." This likens human beings to a product! Are we going to label individuals in society the way we label our milk? Thus far, our adversarial system seems to have shown that it does just that.

Throughout the tour of the court house, I was continually reminded of my position as a Criminal Justice Agency Intern. While at work, I always address the defendants as "ma'am" or "sir" and I make sure that I am polite. As of late, I have been discussing defendants with my co-workers, who almost exclusively say that "the defendants are so nasty. They should not be disrespecting us." I sit there and wonder at this phenomenon. How is it that I have only had one out of many interviews where I have been greeted with hostility? The answer was found today at 100 Centre Street. Being arrested is a difficult and traumatic process. When you are being shuffled around from person to person all day, of course there will be agitation. Also, if you are greeted with hostility and condescension, would you not also return the attitude? We, as a society, promise that "justice shall be denied to no one." How do we expect a defendant to trust us, when etched into the very walls of the building which "serves them justice" are words which, so obviously displays our inadequacy?

My question to everyone is this: how do we, in and with our agencies, help to stop the injustices of the adversarial system? Do you believe that we could stop this "conveyer-belt" mentality of the court with social change? Is it possible to create real equality in the eyes of the law so that justice may really be denied to no one?

I leave you with this.....Justice. What does this word mean to you?

Ecosystems in the context of Social Justice

Hey all,

Thanks for a great class today. I really appreciated hearing about everyone’s ecosystems and it was fascinating to learn how they have influenced your core selves. I think ecological models have a lot to offer in helping us achieve a more holistic, insightful and multi-dimensional understanding of an individual. It helps us move away from the “single story” of a person and allows us to understand what drives this person or how his/her identity has been formed or influenced by invisible forces (in the sense that Professor Waterston discussed) at every level of the system (micro, messo, macro).

In our line of work/study, we are so used to encountering people who are labeled a certain way: delinquent/sex offender/alcoholic/criminal, as if their psychological dispositions/behavioral tendencies told us the entire story about them. But now that we have the tools to move beyond a superficial understanding of a person (with the help of the ecological model), how then can we craft a suitable response that addresses not just his/her microsystem but other systems beyond that as well?

To put things in perspective, the client-to-client work we do at our placements are at the level of the microsystem. Catering to their immediate needs, we become a part of their microsystem. But I believe we can all agree: this is not enough. And I think this is what Hilfiker (whom we encountered a few weeks ago) was trying to get at: much of our social justice responses are geared at improving the microsystem, and our efforts are certainly laudable, but can social justice aspire to more? Can it try to bring about change at the macrosystem? Is that a task that can even be attempted by well-meaning individuals? How does change happen at the macro level? Should we pass better laws? Build more equitable institutions? Where should the will do these things come from? Would inciting mass awareness of existing inequality and discrimination help shift public attitudes?

Please feel free to steer this conversation in whichever direction you please. I look forward to reading your comments. 

Have a great weekend everyone!

Ecosystem. Cyntoia's story.

Dear All:

Thanks for the great class yesterday. Generally, our discussions involve the motivations as to why a specific individual makes a particular decision. What is that in the micro-, meso-, or macrosystem that force Cyntoia to kill that guy? What forces people to make bad decisions? If you all would come back to our chart of the ecological system, the most factors for our bad decisions are located in micro- and meso-level. Our families, friends, and religious affiliations are what develops us at a young age. Early phase  is the most important because the child understands the processes of development . To be effective, the interactions with the family members, friends, and school teachers must “occur on a fairly regular basis over extended period of time” (Bronfenbrenner, p. 38). A negative family characteristic, such as poor parental supervision of children, might be a risk factor for future instability and delinquency. It is connected with a lack of parental supervision, lack of mentorship, the low investment to the family . In Cyntoia’s case, the role of mother was really shady. My opinion may be based on my cultural perspective. For instance, I was not allowed to the spend night outside the house until I was twenty years old. My mother had total control over me; as a result, I rebelled. However, it was particular appreciation of authority.  Cyntoia may be missing the authority  in her life. Unfortunately, the correctional system was the entity of authority she listened to. Her mother's pivotal mistake was to give her freedom. Freedom for those individuals whom received mentorship is appropriate. However, Cyntoia needed particular attention due to the circumstances around her. I know many of you have a different opinion. Here is my first question: Do you feel that her mother did all she could to protect Cyntoia from committing murder?

Incarceration is very tough experience for everyone. I have done research on female offenders. Regardless of their crime, they suffer considerably while incarcerated. It is not going to be always like in the documentary . Does she deserve such a strong sentence? In my view, she should have been given probation because she is too young to be incarcerated. People who are incarcerated have difficulties with coping after being released. Is it appropriate to incarcerate an individual whose whose life just started? Is it normal to put this person in prison when other, more dangerous individuals, are on parole for a similar crime? Personally, I cannot make a decision. From one perspective, Cyntoia appears to be a very ignorant and broken person. She lacks the consistency in what she was doing. Always looking for understanding, she was able to get herself in many different complex situations. How can we guarantee or assume that this "normal" appearing girl would kill because he or she treated her badly? Again, I truly believe that understanding of the basics of communications were not given in childhood, it is too complicated to develop later in life. On the other hand, I cried when I saw the ending. She is just too young . She was denied the opportunity to see another side of life. She will never give birth. She will never play with children. She would never have a dog or kitten. She would never travel to another country . Now, she is denied a chance to find the trust and support that she was looking for. Here is my question: What other measures can be implemented in order to help her to come back to the normal world? 

Finally, considering the role of criminal justice system in this situation, I would like to say that these people did not care about her. Honestly, none of them were really interested in helping her. Psychologists explained why she might become such a person; however, he never suggested of providing any help. I am considerably disappointed with the lawyer. How is it possible that no one in that story attempted to help her. No one at all. Here is my last question: What I the role of your agency in changing the jusctice system ? What system is your agency trying to reform? What system should be reformed?

Again, thanks for the great class. Feel free to add your thoughts that are unrelated to what I  just wrote.

Culture of Poverty

The culture of poverty

The culture of poverty is an interesting topic for us to have, given that it relates to the mission statement of most of our interning agencies. Before going further in the analysis, I would like us to reflect on what role do our agency play in either preventing or furthering the culture of poverty?

Or, how does your agency come to have an influence on the culture of poverty in the neighborhood that it serves?

After reading the both readings by Oscar Lewis and Patrick Moynihan, I came to realize that there is no single element that causes the culture of poverty, multiple factors internal and external contributes to the advances of poverty in inner neighborhood. For example, Oscar Lewis focuses more on the outside explore the origin of the “culture of poverty” a little deeper Oscar Lewis theory of “Culture of Poverty”, where he argues that poverty experienced by those who live in the slums is attributed by institution and also furthered by the lack of organization and consciousness by those affected by it. After a while, culture of poverty becomes a way of life, where those affected by it, fail to see how they are affected. An example of this is yesterday’s scenario; those who were the poor (residents of the Wagner houses) were having difficulties admitting that they were poor. For most of them, crimes that happened around their neighborhood were just regular incidents that can happen in almost any community. (How does this relate to the normalization that Lewis argues in his analysis?)

Why was that?  Doesn’t it just make sense that these people live there and have full responsibility over what they deem to be right for their community?

Going back to the scenario from yesterday’s class, how is it that those who do not reside at the Wagner houses get to make decisions for those who reside there? Just like most agencies tend to have a solution for the problem of certain countries.

When combining both Oscar Lewis and Moynihan’s explanation on the causes of poverty, one can see the gradual characteristic of poverty.  Senator Moynihan deems the origin of this culture of poverty to originate from the weak structure of black nuclear families in America.  The absence of one partner in the house creates an imbalance in the life of the children and increases the likelihood of the family to end up in deep poverty. It goes on to the level of education that one attains in his life, and furthermore to the job that one ends up doing in life.

Let see this issue from an international perspective, the video that explained the social stratification, was more advancing the critic that Vladmir Lenin, a Marxist ideologist who in his book, Imperialism the last Stage of Capitalism- raised in regards to capitalism. He argued that capitalism would collapse after a certain period of time, due to the inflation of profit that it acquires. This theory was developed in the 1917’s, here we are in 2014 and capitalism is still going stronger and stronger.

Another point that was made yesterday, I remember someone mentioned that capitalism was a system that meant to oppress people and picked on a specific group to oppress. Indeed, capitalism is a system of oppression. However, it does not pick which group to be at the bottom. Instead, it stratifies people into classes with unequal distribution of wealth. The responsibility of the development of one group depends on the level of organization that it holds. (See Antonio Gramsci, Formation of the intellectual). If we will talk in terms of ethnic groups, look at the Jews, the Indians and the Chinese, at some point in their history, they were subject to capitalism oppression. But they came to realize the importance of developing economic power in order to better their position within the system. Going back to Oscar Lewis, he writes:

It is the low level of organization that gives the culture of poverty its marginal and anomalous quality in our highly organized society. Most primitive peoples have achieved a higher degree of sociocultural organization than contemporary urban slum dwellers…(pp. 23)

With this idea in mind, one reason why these poor community fails to prosper at the same level as the other is not merely because of where the ruling class wants them to be, but because of the absence of organization and the ignorance of the actual state of matter.

To conclude, if we are experiencing all these issue due to the capitalist system in place, would socialism be a form of social justice?

Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault, Suicide, Prison

Man, do I consider myself inexorably --I may or may not spend the entirety of this post poking fun at Orwell's rules-- lucky to be able to write about language. I was just conferring with my mentor about the way that I speak about oppression and how it varies depending who I talk to. For example, if I am talking to a white male who is agreeing with me in my disgust of the horrendously autocratic society in which we live, I will refer to the oppressors as "they". Conversely, if I am talking to a white male who disagrees  (for instance one who brings a cardboard cut out of Ronald Reagan to the Flood Wall Street demonstration and proselytizes to the protesters) I will refer to the oppressors as "you". Meaning them. This is something I may have done intentionally at one point in the past but now it is so natural that I won't notice unless its brought to my attention. See also: replacing "survivor" with "victim" and "convict" with "criminalized person" or "prisoner" with "incarcerated person". Orwell's rules give me little space to define why I chose to say "empowered" and so I am leaving Professor Waterson with an entirely different thought than I had intended to provoke.
I find my language changing based on my experiences and the peers I surround myself with who are always revealing to me the implications of the words and phrases I use. I quickly adapted to never joking about shooting myself/cutting myself/ending everything because I became friends with a girl who had all too recently found her brother hanging from a ceiling fan. Never in any of the times that I had lamented my struggles and casually pointed a gun shaped hand sign to my head had I ever thought of the seriousness of what I had implied and how that might effect those around my struggling with suicidal thoughts or who knew someone that had taken their own life. For them, the motion had an entirely different meaning.
I never knew how terrible the word "victim" was until society gave me that label. I will never call myself a victim of domestic assault-- I am not a victim, I am a survivor and so is anyone else who has been raped, abused or otherwise suffered terrible conditions. We are not weak, and if you do not know what it is like to have these experiences you cannot possibly understand the way it feels to be called a victim, as if there was nothing you could have done and nothing you can do now, you are weak and powerless.
I think many of us know the stories of mass incarceration all too well based on our placements and the simple fact that we all attend John Jay College, so I will not go much further into that because I do have more to say about other things (there is always more).
Our language connects our soul to other people, when we exchange words we exchange our principles, our ideals, our attitudes, our culture etc. Ngugi struck me because I am the privileged white female who was raised to believe that the only language worth learning was English, and regularly heard my parents grumble that if these immigrants were going to move to America they "sure as Hell better learn our language" (emphasis added). And because I do see language as empowering (because you chose to learn it and you have the strength/ability to do so) and also largely disempowering (because it can be and often is a symbol of colonizers).

I have tried to present adequately many lines of thought which are only related because they are about language but I fear I have done so inadequately, however I am leaving the remains of my thoughts to be explored and commented on by my classmates.

Topics I wanted to cover:
-how words have specific meanings and implications
-language as cultural
-language as empowering/disempowering
-language as a way to grow closer to other humans in humanity (a vessel to share souls with one another)
-----I want to explore these themes further in conversation with you, please go team go