Hawaii, of all places, has instituted a Women's Court- asking this question:
Can we create a system of justice that looks wholly different from what most of us imagine when it comes to crime and punishment, while still demanding accountability from perpetrators? What if court were a place that afforded someone the opportunity for a complete reset, with entryways to jobs, housing, education? What if instead of punishing people who’ve been broken many times over, we helped to heal them?
The answer, of course (DeSantis drones, click away now- this will be offensive to you) is a resounding yes. Why?
The avenues that lead women to jail tend to differ from those for men. Criminologists have long understood this. What happens with women is often a layering of trauma and abuse. They might have economic instability or mental health challenges that allow them to be exploited by violent partners. They might exchange sex for food or housing, and then get arrested for any number of infractions: prostitution, trespassing, drugs. The criminal-justice researcher Stephanie Kennedy calls these “crimes of survival.”
Before we had a bench full of Federalist drones (who don't understand the philosophy, but love anything for an appointment) we had judges like Stanley Goldstein (a former Miami motorcycle cop) and Jeffrey Roskinek (a former Gables high school teacher) who believed more in the person before them than the strict application of every law to every person every time the same way. In other words, they were judges who used discretion to make the lives of the people before them better, rather than calling balls and strikes. Not surprisingly Stan Goldtsein was the founding Judge for Miami's first in the nation drug court, and Judge Rosinek succeeded him and took it to new and greater heights. Both men proved that when judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys work for the good of the defendant, great things happen. Rehabilitating a person saves them and saves the taxpayers enormous sums of money in moving someone out of the revolving door of prisons.
In other words, locking someone up doesn't do a damn bit of good for the vast majority of people in the criminal justice system for non-violent crimes (or BS "violent" crimes like agg assault with a squeegee- yes that was a real case in Miami) when the reason they keep getting arrested has an identifiable genesis - like drug addiction or being in an abusive relationship, or enduring an abusive childhood.
Of course in Miami the State Attorney's Office (victim wants max) and the Judges all vying for the next appointment to the 3rd DCA or Supreme Court all believe that guidelines are guidelines and judges don't make policy ("great argument counselor, please make it to the legislature, motion denied"). They are fully invested in the punishment not rehabilitation paradigm of criminal justice. How's that working out for you? How do you feel sentencing a twenty-year-old to decades in prison for a drug crime? Are you doing the lord's work trying to become the next judge or prosecutor with the nickname of maximum...?
The program in Hawaii, reported on by the failing NY Times here, works. As does veterans court, drug court, mental illness court, and so on. Because what we know- from the statistics- is that for 98% of cases in the criminal justice system, the defendant and the community benefit when all parties in the system work together to provide the client support rather than blindly punish her if she pleads or goes to trial and loses (not that there's such a thing as a trial tax! Oh no no no. No one gets punished for losing a trial. 6th Amendment and all that doncha know.)
Is there a bitter edge to this post? Ya Think? What gave it away?
It's our knowledge that almost (with a few exceptions) no judge or prosecutor in this community would ever risk their career for doing the right thing for someone.
Less than 50 days and counting and some days it cannot end soon enough.
