There are travesties of justice happening every day in court rooms across this country; rather, I should say, what is happening is not justice at all; not for the accused and certainly not for the society that pays for the system.
I heard recently that any system is perfectly designed to generate whatever outcome it produces. What does that say about our legal system when we have some of the highest rates of both incarceration and recidivism in the industrialized world? When young people, whom science tells us do not have the cognitive ability to fully understand the consequences of their actions, find themselves ensnared in our courts, they are not treated with understand, empathy, dignity, or forgiveness. Even if they are moving in the right direction in nearly every other aspect of their lives, our system doesn't attempt to reinforce those behaviors. Instead it strips them bare of what little they have that could keep them on a path toward being productive members of society and increases the chances they will become a part of those shameful statistics.
To answer the question of what is wrong we should not look at the accused but instead look at the other side of the bench. It is those individuals, be they in suits, uniforms, or gowns, who are guilty: guilty of lacking discretion, guilty of lacking wisdom, guilty of lacking judgement; in short, guilty of lacking humanity. And lacking humanity leaves them incapable of recognizing the humanity that stands before them: humanity that is flawed, humanity that is frail, humanity that is redeemable.
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