This piece was published in coordination with Zealous, an organization working to amplify the perspective of public defenders.
When it comes to the fight for racial justice, the Black community is not a monolith. We represent a plethora of political ideologies and practices, especially when it comes to policing. In 2020, 94% of Black women voted against Donald Trump, but some of those same women are on the front lines of the call for more police in our communities. And in New York City, a whole lot of Black folks voted to elect former police officer Eric Adams for mayor. A significant sector of the Black community believes in the current system and view police as synonymous with safety.
For my very churchy family, discussion of these issues can be contentious. As a public defender, I’m cautious about discussing my work, especially after one too many how can you defend those criminals? conversations with aunties. My most sympathetic stories and solid statistics seem to have no influence. So recently, I decided to listen rather than argue the merits of abolition and decarceration. I wanted to understand how certain family members could have views on justice that were so different from mine. And I felt as though our divide was emblematic of a national one.
As I listened to my elders, I learned who they were listening to — and that their messenger mattered far more than the message. For my mother-in-law, the sources are her pastor and CNN. My arguments were no match for their authority. In conversations about bail reform, I talked about the number of people who have been spared the threat of incarceration due to changes in legislation. She would respond with, “Well, pastor says, all who sin under the law will be judged by the law” or similar punitive Bible verses.
It is no mystery how her views on justice — which favor moralistic and excessive punishments — come from religion. Black churches have a complex history in America, but punishment is a universal religious theme. The Bible is full of people being smitten down by God or turned into pillars of salt for their sins. In large part because of her faith, my mother-in-law believes lawbreakers should pay a hefty price for disobedience — an idea inherent in our retributive carceral system.
My mother-in-law’s other source — TV news — is an even more common one among Americans. The sound of CNN is the background music for her life. On a recent visit to her house, I watched with her. The commentator was saying that bail reform was the cause of increased crime while he discussed a gruesome murder that had no connection to bail reform or anyone released on bail. I pointed out to her how inaccurate and irresponsible it is for a news program to discuss bail reform without real statistics, which in actuality show no correlation between an increase of people released on bail and an increase in crime. In the conversation that followed, I realized that the data I presented that disproved the media misinformation didn’t matter. She trusted CNN.
I pressed my mother-in-law to understand why exactly retributive ideas resonated so much. What happened to “turn the other cheek”? I asked her why she was so invested in harsh punishment for crimes, regardless of whether they were petty or serious. Her answers evoked a bootstrapping mentality that is understandable, sad, and infuriating all at once. She described how she grew up extremely poor, without so much as shoes to wear, and worked hard throughout her life until she moved into the Florida retirement home where she now lives. She emphasized that someone shouldn’t just be allowed to take what she earned.
It is not easy to talk to my elders about the abolition of a system that they spent their lives working to successfully overcome. Though they may understand institutional racism on a visceral level, they still view policing, over-policing, and incarceration of their community as an integral part of their personal success. Because jail or prison is the place you go if you don’t try hard enough or if you don’t follow the rules. The inhumane suffering of others in cages becomes a measure of their own success in capitalism. The system has worked against them, yet they still made it in spite of everything. Why can’t others?
I questioned my mother-in-law’s instinct to see all Black people as equally positioned — another form of seeing Black people as a monolith. I pointed out that not all Black and brown people are facing the same struggle. That it is not just about choices, but circumstances: poverty, education, mental health, substance dependency, predatory policing, biased district attorneys, racist judges and lawmakers. I asked her why she wouldn’t opt for a system where no one has to overcome the hurdles she faced. She agreed that this would be ideal, but viewed such a reality as a pipe dream.
Like many Americans, it is hard for my mother-in-law to conceptualize a reality other than the one that exists. I told her what CNN and her pastor do not: that alternatives do exist. Resources make a community safe. When people have access to food, housing, jobs, health care, and other social services, those communities flourish. Black and brown communities are historically under-resourced, over-policed, and criminalized, with the current system failing to address the root causes of crime. Data shows that community-based, public health-centered violence intervention programs do a better job of preventing and decreasing crime than policing and prosecution. Community investment is the best and most practical alternative to the failed system we have now.
When I offered the example famously used by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, stating that a world without police and prisons looks like an affluent suburb, my mother-in-law nodded. She recognized that funding and resources make suburban communities safer. It was a small acknowledgment, but I felt one step closer to convincing her that cutting the obscene law enforcement budgets and investing in under-resourced communities are attainable solutions.
These family conversations, though dispiriting at times, make me think that reaching people like my mother-in-law is possible. I am not going to get very far by simply being another messenger. I cannot compete with the pastor and CNN. But I can ask questions — something these sources seldom do. I learned that, in some debates, it is not about who has the better facts or stories but getting to the core of why someone thinks the way that they do. Because when we understand the foundational assumptions and experiences that shape our views, we can start to question the policies and systems so fundamental to our society. Questions like:
- What do you consider to be the benefits of carceral punishment?
- How does the incarceration of community members affect a community?
- Do your perceived benefits of carceral punishment outweigh the costs to communities?
- If carceral punishment is a deterrence, why do people continue to break laws?
- Does carceral punishment address any of the underlying reasons why people break laws?
- How do the historical origins of American policing and the racially disparate impact of modern prisons factor into your reliance on carceral systems?
Through guided self-reflection, the harms that police and incarceration inflict on communities of color become apparent. Those entrenched in carceral inclinations will ponder why they think the way they do. They will consider certain truths about the monetary, communal, and human costs of policing and incarceration. And, hopefully, they will decide that lasting safety comes from investment in education, jobs, programs, health care, and community infrastructure.
If we want to fight for bail reform or decarceration or alternatives to policing, we have to understand the values and beliefs — and external messengers — that underlie people’s reliance on the status quo, especially people who are part of a community that is disproportionately harmed by the very systems they want to uphold. So I ask these questions to my readers, to my family members, to my neighbors, in the hope that their answers can lead us to greater understanding and perhaps even change, so that our communities can heal from the violence of incarceration and policing that has harmed too many generations. And in hopes that the national landscape around crime and justice will someday look a little less divisive, regressive, and bleak.
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