These are some musings that I have had over the past few weeks. I have been mulling ideas about what it means to be an advocate for the “guilty.” Two of my colleagues have recently inspired me to think about this idea more intentionally as it relates to my own work.

Yesterday, a colleague who teaches at a local law school shared that she tells her law students that she works “on behalf of the guilty.” She said: “I work with the young people who actually committed the crime they are accused of.” She was completely unperturbed as she relayed this. She was unapologetic about this fact. I took heart in her statement. I felt myself becoming just a little bit more hopeful too. While I have great respect for my colleagues who focus their work on exonerating the innocent, we are truly blessed to have people like her out there supporting youth in conflict in the law.

The reality is that there are young people who have committed crimes and they need support. They need zealous advocacy. Their value as human beings must be affirmed. They deserve our attention and our love. When making this case, one risks being accused of lacking compassion for crime victims and for eschewing accountability for harm done. First of all the majority of the “crimes” that young people are punished for are non-violent ones that do not involve another person. Drug offenses account for a large percentage of these “crimes.” Second most young people who have committed some sort of offense were themselves first “victims” of harm perpetrated against them. It is an unfortunate cycle of violence. Finally, I am above all a victim’s advocate and I do not believe that the current criminal legal system which is based on retribution serves victim’s interests well. Think about the fact that in criminal cases, it is the State vs. Defendant X. The victim is not at the center of the proceedings.

A couple of weeks ago, I was on a panel with another colleague who told an important story. She shared the story of a young woman who was incarcerated at the juvenile jail where she works. This young woman was jailed there for years while awaiting a transfer to an adult prison when she was of age. She told of this young woman’s immense leadership abilities and of her role as a nurturer of the other incarcerated girls. One day, without any warning, the young woman was transferred very early in the morning to the adult prison where she was eventually supposed to reside. She had spent 3 to 4 years at the jail but had not been given an opportunity to say goodbye to her peers or to her teachers and other staff who had grown to like and respect her. This was supposedly done to ensure that there would be no disturbances or “trouble” as she was being moved. My colleague ended her story by relaying that a newspaper article appeared shortly after the young woman left detailing the crimes for which she had been convicted. Apparently the details of this crime were horrific and everyone at the jail (staff, teachers, and incarcerated girls) was stunned. Could this be true? How could the person who they had gotten to know be the same person who committed this crime? But I thought she was nice… some of the other girls lamented. Who was the “real” young woman that they had interacted with? Was she the person they had admired and respected over the past 4 years or was she to be mainly defined through the crime that she had committed? The moral of this story is that people cannot solely be defined by the worse thing that they have ever done. People are complicated and grey.

Yesterday I was privileged to take part in a conversation about an upcoming film by Steven James and Alex Kotlowitz called “The Interrupters.” I won’t say too much about the documentary at this point. I will definitely blog about it closer to its official release date next year. The film focuses on three violence “interrupters” from an organization here in Chicago called Ceasefire. The stories of the interrupters serve as a lens through which we can better understand public interpersonal violence and how it plays out in urban America. Even more than that, it is the story of an important group of people in America — former prisoners — and how they can/do use their unique skills and experiences to help address the issue of public interpersonal violence in our cities. One of the most important skills that these “interrupters” bring to their very difficult work is an ability be meet people exactly where they are. We often talk about the importance of being nonjudgmental but few of us ever achieve this in our work or in our lives. These interrupters absolutely do. I suspect that this is because they have had the harsh spotlight of judgment aimed squarely at them for past transgressions. When we acknowledge ourselves as being both perpetrators and survivors then we can ultimately be more forgiving of other people’s foibles. We also find ourselves more willing to act without judgement.

The people that most of us interact with are not stereotypically “bad” or “good.” People are a little bit of everything all of the time. This should engender greater compassion in us. I think that it does.