The Victims Voice
By:
Jessica
L. Montgomery
Some
of you grow up in happy homes and dreamt of being ballerinas and
firemen, and some of you, have had lives filled with pain and
fear brought on as victims of crime. As the daughter of a murder
victim, and a survivor of physical, psychological, and sexual
abuse, I understand that criminal behavior does not only affect
the individual. It also affects the families and communities of
the victim and the offender. Crime
creates pain, fear and grief (Baugher, 2003). When individuals
become over whelmed by grief, they seek harsher punishment for
the offender (s) who has inflicted their pain. They would never
advocate for the criminal’s health, psychological care,
ability to practice religious beliefs, or any other issue that
they presume to be an amenity alone rehabilitation.
However, Rehabilitation is a public safety issue that is best
addressed by the victims of crime. We have paid horrific prices
for another individual’s wrong doing. Therefore, as victims,
we must be willing to look beyond our grief and use our
experiences to improve the current system. We must learn to
understand that individuals who have psychological, economic,
and circumstantial issues commit the majority of crime (Adler,
1991). We must understand that for hundreds of years, research
has been supporting the rehabilitation process of incarcerated
offenders because it lowers the recidivism rates.
We must understand that Incarceration without proper
rehabilitation is simply irresponsible. We do not evaluate an
operating room by the bodies in the morgue; we evaluate its
success by the patient’s ability to again live a productive
life. When you evaluate the effectiveness of the prison system
in a similar way, you can see that we shouldn’t evaluate
prison on the number of people in it who are re-offenders, but
the number of individuals who return to society rehabilitated.
Funny how it’s easy to advocate for justice, but it’s not
always easy to advocate for safety.
Works
Cited
1. Adler, Freda and
William Laufer. (1991) Criminology and the Justice System
5th
Edition
2. Baugher, Bob. Lecture. (Fall 2003)
Psychology 120. Highline Community College.
During the Fall of 2003, Dr. Baugher spoke
on many topics but one set of words stood clear. He would say to
his students, “The human mind has two jobs. The first is to
understand the world around it, and the second is to eliminate
pain.” Everyone experiences pain on an individual level. Each
has his or her own level of tolerance and when we evaluate this
statement and compare it to the “get tough on crime
movement” we find that an individual is more than capable of
seeing others receive harsher punishment. But, once they
register this information, it creates a type of pain which is
quickly covered up by the statement “It will never happen to
me!” Thus making the over all attempt to denture criminal
behavior a
3. DOC Guide for
Friends and Families of Incarcerated Offenders.
Washington
Department of Corrections. Retrieved Feb. 1, 2005, from
http://www.doc.wa.gov/general/P184.pdf
4. Kohl-Welles, (2002) Jeanne Educating
Inmates Is Worth The Investment.
Seattle
Press. Retrieved June 20, 2002, from http://www.seattlepressonline.com/article-9751.html
This article explains the slim difference
between the budget used to warehouse individual inmates compared
to the budget it would take to properly educate them and prepare
them to reenter society. It also explains that by educating
inmates we enhance the chances of their success and therefore
increase the safety of our communities.
5. Langan, Patrick,
and David Levin (June 2002) “Recidivism in 1994.”
Bureau
of Justice Special Report.
NCJ 193427. Retrieved Jan. 31, 2005, from
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/rpr94.pdf
6. Montgomery, Jessica. (2005) [Highline Community College Peer Survey].
Unpublished raw data.
The above survey contains the self-reported
information such as the age, gender, race, arrest history, and
personal opinions of the individuals who completed the said
document. The final results found that of 100 students and faculty
surveyed at Highline Community College, 85.71% believed that
offenders should receive human treatment, 61.11% believed that
offenders should be permitted to utilize weight-training
devices, and 53.66% believed that offenders should be allowed
the privilege of television. Supporting the notion that prison
amenities ate indeed a positive addition and not simply a
babysitting mechanism used by prison officials to entertain
inmates and pacify them.
7. “Reentry
Trends in the United States.” The U.S Department of Justice,
Bureau of
Statistics Web Site. Last Revised 2 June 2002
<http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/reentry/reentry.htm>
