Embrace GRAYce

“High and low of the day?” the Defense Attorney Mom asked her 7 year old son—she was especially curious about what he’d come up with after their action-packed “Take Your Child to Work” day.

The question was a nightly occurrence at their house, but this was the first time he got to see his courageous, strong Mama in court versus hearing about it during their daily recap.

They spent most of the work day at the courthouse, where Mom represents criminal defendants that do not have the money to pay for an attorney themselves, aka a Public Defender.

*A Public Defender is still a licensed attorney—in my experience, darn good attorneys—that are overworked and underpaid.*

The young boy saw trials, drug court, and a Judge even let him sit where only Judges are allowed.

High of the first grader’s day?

The variety of sodas in the cafeteria of the courthouse. There were so many flavors, colors and options—Mom was so lucky that she could pick any soda, any day of the week.

*i love seeing the world through a child’s eyes—turns the mundane into magical*

Her son had plenty of highs to choose from, and the rainbow of drink options won the day… Mom chuckled to herself imagining his low would be that she refused to buy 5 bottles of the colorful sugar.

“Low was… seeing human beings in chains.”

Or what an incarcerated Defendant looks like from a 7 year old child’s perspective.

“What’d they do that was so bad? Did they hurt someone?”

The actual criminal charges of the “humans in chains” that were in custody on “Take Your Child to Work” Day were drug possession, retail theft and criminal trespass.

“No baby, they didn’t hurt anybody… except themselves. Sometimes humans have wounds inside that we can’t see. I’m doing everything I can to help them heal those inside wounds.”

Yes you are beautiful friend.

This isn’t a made up story or one of my delusional embrace GRAYce dreams. I heard this 4ish years ago from a close friend with an incredible heart and soul—ironic as she’s the enemy at work.

A brutally honest friendship that’s seen the highest of highs and lowest of lows and started on opposite sides of a courtroom.

How do we as a society explain the hard life lesson of “you do the crime, you do the time” to a seven year old after seeing hurting humans in chains?

Take a deeper look at the charges.

Drug Possession—crime rooted in addiction, which is medically accepted as a disease;

Retail Theft—stealing food to survive, from multi-million dollar corporations that don’t care enough to provide the means to adequately protect their own merchandise let alone pay their own employees a living wage; and

Criminal Trespass—a homeless veteran banned from every business in town that had nowhere to go or means to get him there.

Yet “humans in chains” is still our government’s response to drug addiction, starvation, and homelessness after serving our country—make it make sense to a naive, curious first grader who doesn’t understand politics.

Shoot, someone make it make sense to me.

Kid’s gotta point on his high of the day, we are lucky to have so many options at our fingertips. With the benefit of a kid’s perspective, the hatred I harbored toward the same cafeteria for not always having my specific beverage of choice, magically disappeared.

If we actually heard what our kids were saying when it’s not so magical, maybe adults would see there are better options.

Prison, for example. A system fueled by generational trauma that needs reform.

We could be spending a fraction of the cost to help “humans in chains”, yet we choose to spend upwards of $70k/year/defendant so they can sit and think about what they did. Just to get out and do it again cuz they don’t know any better.

Why?

We’ve all been conditioned to believe that prison is the accurate response for “heinous” crimes and/or seasoned criminals.

Create a physical space to divide the “bad” people from the “good” ones. 

That system might work if say, our current Politicians, were held responsible for their rampant crimes of desire and greed—might actually deter further abuse of government power and tax dollars if we saw accountability.

IDK given the current lack of accountability for people in places of societal power. See earlier posts for examples 🤭

That same four walls of a cell punishment just doesn’t have the same rehabilitative/preventative qualities for addicts or those afflicted by mental health issues—the vast majority of currently incarcerated individuals.

In the words of my fave Roman Stoic Philosopher Seneca “It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity.”

If it’s purely a numbers thing, and helping people costs less, why are there so many humans still in chains?

Call it a hunch…

Prisons are privately owned businesses with private contracts.

County jails are also supported by private corporations like Wexford Health, the for profit company subcontracted to provide woefully substandard medical services at the Will County jail.

Money > Humans

Get ready for the ride of a lifetime that begins on Monday… a rollercoaster I like to call Oligarchy.

Keep the finger pointed in the right place embrace GRAYce fam 🖤🤍🩶