You Can't Tell Me What Justice Is
And I can't define it
Have you watched American Primeval on Prime yet?
This stomach-churning mini-series recreates atrocities that occurred in the Utah territory in 1857. Real events— as told through our modern moving pictures. Though the producers creatively abstained from using CGI and soundstage effects, it is a five-senses experience nonetheless.
You can smell the wood-smoke on wool clothing.
Beyond the glorious audacity of the film making, however, it is entirely something else. A reckoning. A pull back to a time of frontier law and order— the righting of wrongs and swift ‘justice’ by way of ropes and guns. As the credits rolled, I sat there thinking, and then I spent the night walking through weird dreams: a jaguar stalking a child, a long gray ash dangling at the end of a cigarette, a man's rough, bloated hand.
Spoiler Alert: At the end of American Primeval, it is the government and the religious elites who (shocker) survive another day to murder and thieve and destroy more. All of the beautifully complicated characters die— the drunks, the pious white women, the Natives, the white man raised by the Shoshone. The only redemption we get is when the mother, who had spent the entire film protecting her son, rides off into the sunset with him safe at her side.
It's my obsession these days— thinking about America’s obsession with justice. We still have an insatiable thirst for retribution. And for killing people. Though we, as a people, are far less likely to be able to ride a galloping horse and shoot a gun at the same time, give us a keyboard and WOW, we are a bonafide posse of righteous assholes. Instead of whoops and hollers, we got those blue digital thumbs-ups. Some wild comment like, ‘I hope he rots’ will get over 200 heart bubble gunshots into the open air.
“They deserve justice!"
“We want justice!"
“This isn't justice!"
Let’s cut the shit, friends.
You can’t tell me what justice is, and I can’t define it for you, so we all need to stop using words that we don’t understand. If I ask you what justice is, you’ll look at me blankly, fumbling through news reels and Cops reruns in your head. You will imagine vague details you heard about horrific stabbings and child rape and school shooters.
Casey Anthony. Jeffrey Epstein. Ethan Crumbley’s parents.
You will feel righteous and justified, protective of your own— perched on the edge of angry, the Wild West stirring within your belly. Of course we need a response when ‘bad’ people do bad things, but you will not be able to define justice.
While I might be weird (and abrasive) asking random people what justice means (caution inviting me to a party), it turns out that American people are insanely passionate about this issue. It's not abortion or immigration, but it’s up there. When I ask people what justice means to them, most raise an eyebrow, sigh and then— faced with the absurdity of defining a really nebulous and uncomfortable thing— say, ‘Yeah, I don’t know’ or ‘I think it depends.’
I can respect that. It requires critical thinking and mindful social discourse.
What I do not appreciate is seeing friends ‘liking’ tough on crime rants on socials— giving their full support to random political clowns yelling down underground tunnels with child-like fascination at the sound of their own voice echoing back. Lock them up! Bury them under the jail! Bring back public execution! Add a snapback hat that says PATRIOT and the volume dial is at 10.
Yeah— I'm not buying it.
Not one person I have met can backup their crowd-sourced criminal justice agreements to my face. No one— not even cops or DOC employees I know. My friends support my imprisoned son, often asking me how he is, but good Lord when a bearded Insta-famous, tough-guy lowers his voice in an online Reel and uses words like habitual and offender and conviction, people catch the fevers. ‘Society is worse than ever’ and damn it, if ‘we’ don’t come down hard on these brazen criminals then ‘you’ are all to blame for the next mass shooting. Get the horses! Get the guns!
Hard truth— if you, in even the smallest of ways, support the undefined, inconsistent punishment models of western civilization, you are to blame for the next habitual offender. Over 60% of countries now report their prisons are at or beyond capacity, and nearly 25% are at over 150% occupancy. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
We have created generations of carceral families in the name of ‘justice,’ and my grandkids are now at greater risk of incarceration than I ever was. So are yours. Prison is so common that 1 in 2 American households have had a family member in lock-up. We have dehumanized people worse than any video game ever did— and then wonder why anti-social behavior is so common. Harsher punishment is what got us here and we are (clearly) not any safer.
While we think our blue thumbs-up or red heart clicks join a righteous chorus of Tough On Crime or #familyvalues or #crunchymom or Gen X or Back the Blue or whatever other 2-bit algorithm slogan we’ve been spoon-fed for a decade— it is lunacy to think this herd behavior will bring about a better society.
If you have made it this far, I'm going to honor your time with some personal disclosure.
I am not a naïve idealist who thinks we can solve crime with group hugs and meditation retreats. I have friends who are cops and husbands of friends who are lifetime LEO. I am a registered gun-owner and I live in the country where we actually shoot them. My husband drives a big old diesel truck, and I have a large American flag on my country-ass front porch. Shit, I can even sing Kid Rock songs on my boat on the 4th of July if you’d like. Go ahead— judge me.
I have also spent too many years now staring directly into the cesspit that is ‘American’ criminal justice. I will take my white country ass to stand on the front steps of our Capitol building or local courthouse any day of the week with a bullhorn and scream at the top of my lungs.
Because this isn’t justice—
1. Weed
Marijuana has been illegal in most U.S. states dating back to the 1930s. After the Boggs Act of 1951, the government began imposing harsh mandatory sentences for marijuana, and by the 1970s the Controlled Substances Act classified it as a Schedule I drug, alongside heroin and LSD.
As we know, weed has been largely decriminalized in the U.S. As of this summer, 40 states allow medical use and 24 states allow recreational use. It’s completely decriminalized in 22 states, as well as D.C. So, to my question: what was—and what is “justice” concerning marijuana use and/or possession? What about all of those poor souls who did hard time for marijuana crimes? People died in prison for this, and we’re just going to move past it like it didn’t happen? That’s justice?
Idaho
The stabbing murders of four sleeping university students in a house on a campus in Idaho resulted in the arrest and conviction of a man whom I will not give the dignity of a name. He took a plea deal and was recently sentenced to life in prison. Is this justice? The residents of Idaho are now paying to feed, clothe, and shelter him for another potential 60 years of ‘living.’ Do the parents of those murdered students feel ‘justice’ has been served? Do you?
Texas
We (yes, we) killed a man in Texas in 2004 after he was convicted of an arson which led to the death of his own three little children inside the family home. His name was Cameron Todd Willingham. After pumping lethal doses of a three-drug cocktail into his veins and watching him die, serious doubts about his culpability arose. Most scholars and legal experts now believe, based on evidence, that he was innocent of the crime he was locked up and put to death for. Texas doing Texas things— in their deep, tough guy voices and snapback hats. I don't want to hear another Texas word about justice if this is what they're willing to gamble. What we all did to Todd Willingham after he bravely survived his kids’ tragic deaths is inexcusable. Shame on us.
The mental playbook that I flip through each time a terrible event happens and rolls across my feed is exhausting. Another murder sensationalized and followed-up by cries for more Corrections or #mentalhealth care— as if there is an easy fix. As if we have the answers behind our clacking keyboards. I have no faith anymore in either of those big businesses. I want justice too with a red-faced fury, but I am not sure what it is.
It is tempting, at this point, to open this into a longer essay on crime deterrence statistics but I don’t have it in me this week. My son was moved to a new facility, farther away from home, and I’m tired right now. Perhaps, another day I will expand the discussion.
It is enough right now for me to suggest that we cannot incarcerate our way out of crime nor addiction, friends. We can't round up nor execute enough people to get ahead. God bless us, we have tried. The cold fact is that murder rates are consistently higher in death-penalty states than those without it. I will wait for someone in the Patriot snapback to explain this to me. During the pandemic, the murder rate in some death-penalty (red) states tripled. That’s not deterrence. That’s failure.
I asked my weird question about the meaning of justice to my readers a few weeks ago, and one response summed up my thoughts perfectly: “Every definition I think of, I can debate. I don’t know if I’ve ever truly experienced it.”
Right.
Because justice is relative and personal and— so damn complicated.
This is exactly right. We've all got our pitchforks out for "justice" but can't define what the hell we're actually asking for.
And that they use that label on a system that is so very broken is appropriate in a way. Justice can't be defined any better than the justice system can be supported, understood or rationalized. It is all human constructs to do a job not meant for humans. I appreciate the thought provoking writing!