Renee’s Reviews > Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair > Status Update

"The opposite of trauma is power"

Chapter 13 on white people is the most subversive thing I've read in a while. She nails it. FANTASTIC. STANDING OVATION.

"Almost no one's entry point into violence is committing it"

This is all so common sense that it infuriates me to know we just keep doing what doesn't help - and actively harms - families and communities. Incarceration should be a lady resort. I'm sickened every time I think about the criminal injustice system that we ALL fund with our taxes. It's inhumane and despicable.

The use of incarceration does nothing to heal the person or the harm find. The individual doesn't actually process pain or work through their actions because out goes against the way our criminal injustice system is set up.
How are we to build an accountability-based culture when everything about court makes it stupid to admit to what you've done? In prison, no one talks about their crime. So......

Ch 3 and 4 are so powerful. She really drives home the fact that incarceration doesn't help victims; longer sentences don't help any more than short sentences. The fact that we keep using this punitive measure despite the fact that it doesn't do anything to help the victim is crazy - until you remember that incarceration is just another form of slavery and was never meant to help victims. A terrible "only" option.

Before calling the police, survivors ask themselves 2 things: 1. Will it restore my sense of safety? And 2. Will it restore my sense of justice?

I want to know which demographics actually think the police help reduce violent crime.