This is a question I have asked myself a thousand times. I can't seem to stay away from it. If I turn my back on this passion, it comes to me in ways I'd rather not deal with. When I got clean over ten years ago I thought I was done with courtrooms. Ha!
The law has always fascinated me, more so, the criminals have always captivated me. I guess they go hand in hand. But now that I am learning about the law and what it truly entails, it draws me in deeper and deeper because it is so unbelievably fucked up and complicated. And twisted. And fragile. And subject to interpretation. And as you guys may have figured out by now, I am drawn to fucked up, as it is drawn to me.
Some laws are so detailed and some are way too broad. And by a law being too broad, some people suffer consequences that they shouldn't. Seriously.
But our system is terribly broken and that's the truth. I have no intentions of changing the world. What I do intend on doing is fighting, but silently in the background; proving people wrong, proving the repercussions of the law may be unjust for some. Now, I know this has been done since the beginning of time but I want to be a part of it. I like to fight. I like to look for the loophole. I like to show people the other side of things that aren't always capable of seeing it.
I myself was in trouble an awful lot as a teenager and now a close family member is having some trials and tribulations. I have always had an obsession with the law and criminals to be honest. When I was going through an old box in my basement I found a list that I had written in third grade. It was part of an assignment. We had to write down five things that we wanted to be when we grew up. Number one on my list was a criminal attorney. The rest of the list was just filling. I looked at that list and realized that I had forgotten about it. The list. It had always been in the back of mind, but I kept it hidden there. As I grew older, my beliefs kept me from pursuing that dream.
When I was about 25 I threw my hat over the fence and applied at a law firm for a paralegal position. I got the job right away and began to work for two criminal defense attorneys. I didn't have a clue about the law and how it really worked. I didn't care, I just knew that I loved interviewing people and doing research on people and their situations. It fascinated me to find out what made these people tick and why they would do such things.
After about seven months of working there, two cases came up; one was murder, the other, a woman had abandoned her newborn. I had to interview these people. They weren't denying that they did it, but the attorneys were working to get them the lightest sentence possible AND get this girls baby back to her.
I couldn't sleep at night knowing that I was a part of trying to free them. It became too much for me and I quit.
Fast forward to now. Like I said earlier, a close family member has been in a lot of legal trouble for the last three years. He made his first HUGE mistake when he was 16. Now, I'm not saying he didn't do it. What I am saying is that I have walked with him on his journey through life thus far. It hasn't been easy for him and he is still young and quite immature. He had been through some really rough times and neither him nor I at the time knew of any way to cope with these things. He was extremely intoxicated when he was arrested. We had no money for an attorney so he had a public defender. He was tried and convicted as an adult. (If you are wondering, he harmed no one. It was not a violent crime). He will now have a record for the rest of his life for something that he should have gotten help for and at least given an opportunity to prove himself. They dropped the hammer on him and I think everyone was in udder disbelief, especially me. This boy still has no clue how this is really going to affect him throughout his life. He's too young and immature to understand.
I could go on about everything that had taken place at the time and everything since then but I'll save you the gory details. But as I watched this broken system defeat a child, it angered me in such ways that I really never felt before. The sadness, the disbelief, the heartbreak and disappointment was a lot to handle while trying to remain strong and help the boy accept responsibility for his behavior and speak much of what I know I believe in my heart, but is tough to say when anger is writhing inside.
As I showed up for court with ? countless times, we got to know people and watch other cases and as person after person walked up to the bench, I would look at who came to support them and see the fear and sadness in their eyes. I would wonder what these people had been through that had brought them here. I would wonder if they were loved, if they had a good dad, if their parents were junkies when they were growing up, what were the circumstances when they did what they did? I am not saying that there is any excuse for behavior such as this, what I am saying is I want to see more help and prevention than punishment.
They were all innocent kids at one time and something went terribly wrong somewhere along the way. What was it?
Sometimes these young kids go into prison for something really stupid. Maybe a drug charge, maybe they stole something from a store, maybe they even stole a care going on a joy ride. Then they go into a violent system that forgets about them. They serve two, maybe three years and then they are released. Do we have any idea what they have endured while they were in there? They are provoked, especially by correctional officers. Sometimes they are worse than the prisoners. Do you know how much this changes someone? They are kept in an environment of violence and treated like animals. Maybe some believe some deserve it, but a majority of them don't. Then we release them back onto the street. What are we expecting from them after they have been is such a hostile environment for so long? I'll tell you what I expect. I expect them to be more violent and fucked up than they were when they went in. I expect that they have learned how to be better criminals and learned more ways to break the law. I expect that they made connections with other prisoners. I expect them to be extremely angry.
They receive no help or rehabilitation. They receive no way of coping with daily life or education on being reintegrated into society. They have no hope and that is the most dangerous person to have out there. Where do they go? Back to where they came from.
After experiencing all of this and watching all of this closely, the passion came back along with the adrenaline and the vibration in my veins. I never want to be a lawyer. I have my reasons, maybe that will be another post. I do want to work closely with a lawyer. I do want to do research and interview. Ultimately I would like to work with a team of lawyers on death penalty cases. (Another costly and useless law). I now want to help get some of these people the lightest sentence possible, at least until the system, the government, the people wake up and see that we need prevention and rehabilitation more than we need punishment. I would rather my tax dollars go toward prevention and education as opposed to locking people up and releasing them only to break the law again.
I get it now. I was in the right place when I was 26, it was just the wrong time. But not really. I needed that experience to come to where I am now. I remember back to those two cases and I see the situation differently now. I think about those people differently. I feel sadness and compassion for them. Of course I feel sadness and compassion for the victims and their families too, but could we have prevented this as a society in some way?
That is always the question I come to. Could this have been prevented? And the answer I come up with every time, is Yes. Yes it can be prevented. With education. With love. With compassion. With understanding.
That's all for now. I'm stepping down from soap box.
~Live Happy
The law has always fascinated me, more so, the criminals have always captivated me. I guess they go hand in hand. But now that I am learning about the law and what it truly entails, it draws me in deeper and deeper because it is so unbelievably fucked up and complicated. And twisted. And fragile. And subject to interpretation. And as you guys may have figured out by now, I am drawn to fucked up, as it is drawn to me.
Some laws are so detailed and some are way too broad. And by a law being too broad, some people suffer consequences that they shouldn't. Seriously.
But our system is terribly broken and that's the truth. I have no intentions of changing the world. What I do intend on doing is fighting, but silently in the background; proving people wrong, proving the repercussions of the law may be unjust for some. Now, I know this has been done since the beginning of time but I want to be a part of it. I like to fight. I like to look for the loophole. I like to show people the other side of things that aren't always capable of seeing it.
I myself was in trouble an awful lot as a teenager and now a close family member is having some trials and tribulations. I have always had an obsession with the law and criminals to be honest. When I was going through an old box in my basement I found a list that I had written in third grade. It was part of an assignment. We had to write down five things that we wanted to be when we grew up. Number one on my list was a criminal attorney. The rest of the list was just filling. I looked at that list and realized that I had forgotten about it. The list. It had always been in the back of mind, but I kept it hidden there. As I grew older, my beliefs kept me from pursuing that dream.
When I was about 25 I threw my hat over the fence and applied at a law firm for a paralegal position. I got the job right away and began to work for two criminal defense attorneys. I didn't have a clue about the law and how it really worked. I didn't care, I just knew that I loved interviewing people and doing research on people and their situations. It fascinated me to find out what made these people tick and why they would do such things.
After about seven months of working there, two cases came up; one was murder, the other, a woman had abandoned her newborn. I had to interview these people. They weren't denying that they did it, but the attorneys were working to get them the lightest sentence possible AND get this girls baby back to her.
I couldn't sleep at night knowing that I was a part of trying to free them. It became too much for me and I quit.
Fast forward to now. Like I said earlier, a close family member has been in a lot of legal trouble for the last three years. He made his first HUGE mistake when he was 16. Now, I'm not saying he didn't do it. What I am saying is that I have walked with him on his journey through life thus far. It hasn't been easy for him and he is still young and quite immature. He had been through some really rough times and neither him nor I at the time knew of any way to cope with these things. He was extremely intoxicated when he was arrested. We had no money for an attorney so he had a public defender. He was tried and convicted as an adult. (If you are wondering, he harmed no one. It was not a violent crime). He will now have a record for the rest of his life for something that he should have gotten help for and at least given an opportunity to prove himself. They dropped the hammer on him and I think everyone was in udder disbelief, especially me. This boy still has no clue how this is really going to affect him throughout his life. He's too young and immature to understand.
I could go on about everything that had taken place at the time and everything since then but I'll save you the gory details. But as I watched this broken system defeat a child, it angered me in such ways that I really never felt before. The sadness, the disbelief, the heartbreak and disappointment was a lot to handle while trying to remain strong and help the boy accept responsibility for his behavior and speak much of what I know I believe in my heart, but is tough to say when anger is writhing inside.
As I showed up for court with ? countless times, we got to know people and watch other cases and as person after person walked up to the bench, I would look at who came to support them and see the fear and sadness in their eyes. I would wonder what these people had been through that had brought them here. I would wonder if they were loved, if they had a good dad, if their parents were junkies when they were growing up, what were the circumstances when they did what they did? I am not saying that there is any excuse for behavior such as this, what I am saying is I want to see more help and prevention than punishment.
They were all innocent kids at one time and something went terribly wrong somewhere along the way. What was it?
Sometimes these young kids go into prison for something really stupid. Maybe a drug charge, maybe they stole something from a store, maybe they even stole a care going on a joy ride. Then they go into a violent system that forgets about them. They serve two, maybe three years and then they are released. Do we have any idea what they have endured while they were in there? They are provoked, especially by correctional officers. Sometimes they are worse than the prisoners. Do you know how much this changes someone? They are kept in an environment of violence and treated like animals. Maybe some believe some deserve it, but a majority of them don't. Then we release them back onto the street. What are we expecting from them after they have been is such a hostile environment for so long? I'll tell you what I expect. I expect them to be more violent and fucked up than they were when they went in. I expect that they have learned how to be better criminals and learned more ways to break the law. I expect that they made connections with other prisoners. I expect them to be extremely angry.
They receive no help or rehabilitation. They receive no way of coping with daily life or education on being reintegrated into society. They have no hope and that is the most dangerous person to have out there. Where do they go? Back to where they came from.
After experiencing all of this and watching all of this closely, the passion came back along with the adrenaline and the vibration in my veins. I never want to be a lawyer. I have my reasons, maybe that will be another post. I do want to work closely with a lawyer. I do want to do research and interview. Ultimately I would like to work with a team of lawyers on death penalty cases. (Another costly and useless law). I now want to help get some of these people the lightest sentence possible, at least until the system, the government, the people wake up and see that we need prevention and rehabilitation more than we need punishment. I would rather my tax dollars go toward prevention and education as opposed to locking people up and releasing them only to break the law again.
I get it now. I was in the right place when I was 26, it was just the wrong time. But not really. I needed that experience to come to where I am now. I remember back to those two cases and I see the situation differently now. I think about those people differently. I feel sadness and compassion for them. Of course I feel sadness and compassion for the victims and their families too, but could we have prevented this as a society in some way?
That is always the question I come to. Could this have been prevented? And the answer I come up with every time, is Yes. Yes it can be prevented. With education. With love. With compassion. With understanding.
That's all for now. I'm stepping down from soap box.
~Live Happy
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