When They Get Sent Away

February 27th, 2025

I have a friend, a former coworker, who has a nephew in prison. The nephew is doing ten years for killing a person while driving drunk. My friend told me that the nephew’s father, who is in his seventies, is worried that he might not be alive when his son finally gets released. I thought about that. The father has a legitimate concern. He can visit his son once in a while, but he may never have a close relationship with his boy again.

I have another friend. This man did sixteen years in prison for shooting at a cop. He has kids, but he never got to see them grow up. They had a father who was absent from the most important years of their lives. They were raised by other people.

I know a young woman who is going to prison. She has a small child. She will miss seeing him start kindergarten, along with missing other milestones of his life. They will be able to exchange snail mail and have video calls, but the boy won’t see his mama very often. She won’t be able to care for her child. Someone else has to do that.

Should people like the three I mentioned go to prison? Probably. Do they need to be isolated from the society at large? Yes, at least for a while. Is there a better way to deal with them?

I don’t know.

In our country, we like to talk about a “war on crime”. That’s an interesting metaphor. Our criminal justice system focuses on public safety, which is as it should be. The system also tries, at least sometimes, to give victims of crimes some closure and recompense. However, the system is more about retribution as a form of deterrence than it is about restoration and healing the wounded community. We look at the situation as a war and we fight it that way.

If we are in a war against crime, then there are noncombatants, just like in any other kind of war. If there are noncombatants, then there is often collateral damage. People who had nothing to do with the crime suffer because they are somehow related to the perpetrator. These people can be parents, children, spouses or friends. They have done nothing wrong, but they will be punished just like the person who committed the offense.

Is justice really justice if innocents suffer along with the guilty?