Invisible Victims/How the Three Ps of Law Enforcement
Rally behind victims, so long as they aren’t their own.
Every newsletter on MYLIFEplus25 is public and free to everyone, but we ask for your support. Please consider becoming a patron now to help fund our ongoing legal efforts that dare to speak truth to power. This isn't journalism, it's activism! And these efforts are only possible through the support of good people just like you who believe that change is possible.
Please take a moment to subscribe to my podcast on one of the following channels:
Apple Podcasts:
Google Podcasts:
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy81NThjMWE5MC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw==
Spotify:
And follow me on Twitter here: Follow @lifeplus25
Thank you and I hope you enjoy today’s post.
-
Families protesting at prison, source: Keyt.com
Police, prosecutors, and politicians are predictable in their defense of victims' rights and the need for justice, accountability, and the rule of law. They say things like, "Victims need justice to heal." A sentiment that influences everything from pretrial release, parole, to the legislation that creates laws or guidelines that inform judges on sentencing. Yet, it's important to understand that their war cries are far from universal, because there exists a class of victim that you'll almost never hear them mention. They are the victims of their own misconduct and criminality.
I'm referring not only to the individuals who are systematically being arrested, brutalized, tried, and convicted (often in less than two years) for crimes they didn't commit. We call them wrongful convictions, and it often takes years, decades, or, as is often the case, a lifetime or more to rectify the wrong that has been brought against these survivors. A tragic reality that stains the legitimacy of all law enforcement, at the same time compounding the harm actively being done to the victims that extends beyond the names listed with the National Registry of Exonerations.
The Registry estimates that between two and ten percent of the 2.3 million currently incarcerated in the U.S. have been wrongfully convicted. An estimate that speaks of at least 46,000 innocent people locked away for crimes they didn't commit. Add to this the families, loved ones, and communities that are deprived of their support and contributions, both financial and otherwise, and what we're left with is an incalculable amount of devastation where no justice is pursued, discussed, or even mentioned in most political discourse.
3 Baltimore men Exonerated Source: m.amsterdamnews.com
For those of us who have lived this experience, whether directly or indirectly, it can be hard to conceptualize and understand the what for behind these wrongful convictions. Especially because our ability to reason can all too often be blocked by the trauma, the frustrations and emotions that continually drown our perceptions. This blockade on our personhood serves as an embargo on our ability to fight, because it's so easy to lose ourselves in the immediate battles for survival that we can fail to apply ourselves to the war that requires our attention. The war being that of proving our innocence and reaching the point of exoneration and freedom.
I have detailed some of my own struggles with confronting defeat and finding reasons to go on, once all was perceived as lost. By no means is my intent here to imply that I possess the key to over coming all traumas of this magnitude, I’m simply sharing the experience and wisdom gained from the day to day survival of what continues to be a horrific situation authored by bureaucratic convenience, groupthink, prosecutorial misconduct, ineffective assistance of counsel, and, as of late, and unwillingness from elective officials currently in law enforcement to acknowledge the need for immediate action to reform a broken justice system.
Everyday I awake to find myself still wrongfully convicted, I see only fleeting glimpses of myself as the young man that I was when I was sentenced to this world on the cusp of my life. The thinning, salt and pepper hair, the lines on my face, the aches in my body from too many repetitive movements. A life lost is impossible to account for and calculate with ones and zeros. It requires more than numbers. The pain of this is perhaps a wound that will never heal, even more so when I account for those who have suffered from my absence.
Our system of laws applies consequences to our errant behaviors, i.e., criminality. What it doesn't account for are the lives irrevocably attached to our own. The children who grow without parental guidance, the marriages that perish from abandonment, the communities robbed of the contributions that could've been. And then there are those who never let go.
Missed for the last seventeen years, for our holidays are very sad, Please help bring my son, and grandson home
For me there are two, my mother and grandmother, the two women who collectively raised me to be the man that I am despite the circumstances or surroundings that encompass me. The price they continue to pay is incalculable. But for the sake of argument let's try:
The reverse mortgage, the liquidated 401k, the forfeited pension, the savings, 20-30 percent of earnings for the last seventeen years, the missed trips, vacations, toys, clothing, concerts, and experiences in general that couldn't be justified by my wrongfully incarcerated state. Could you enjoy a vacation knowing perfectly well that a loved one is in need of a medical procedure that health insurance doesn't cover? This is often the dilemma of families of the wrongfully convicted.
—