So, much for wanting to blog regularly again. Maybe eventually I’ll figure out how to live my life and blog too. For now, I will re-visit the month-old topic of whether or not I still believe in non-violence.
I’ll start with an example. I was recently in the know about a situation that involved a woman getting choked and beaten by her fiancé. With some assistance from friends and family, she moved out of their apartment, broke off their engagement, pressed charges, and got a restraining order. I am strongly in favor of her doing all of those things, but that means that I support sending police officers to his house with weapons to handcuff him, put him in the back of a police car, and throw him in a holding cell until he can make bail. Whatever happens to him next will be decided by a coercive system that runs on punishment – particularly for those without the cash for a good lawyer. It’s foolish to pretend otherwise.
While I am categorically opposed to the death penalty and support notions of restorative justice, I do believe that people who commit violent offenses should go to jail – even though I am fully aware that our prisons are dangerous and violent places and I am supporting an incarceration that will most likely involve beatings, rape, and various other forms of torture, dominance, and control. Even if all those things didn’t happen, locking someone up in a cage surrounded by guards with guns is most certainly a violent act. I know all this, and I still think violent criminals should go to jail. I don’t think I can trumpet my commitment to non-violence just because I am not personally walking uniformed and armed through the halls of Pelican Bay.
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