November 28, 2021

Ep 02: How Should We Practice Justice?

Who really benefits when punishment is the purpose of our criminal justice system? And who might benefit if the purpose was something closer to education, or health, or wellbeing?

Criminal justice, prison, and police reform have become regular parts of our national conversation…

especially since George Floyd’s murder and the pandemic continues to hit prisons hard.

But what does justice mean? What does it mean in theory? And what has it meant in practice?

Justice is a uniquely human experience and concept. And it’s also one we haven’t quite put our finger on defining, let alone enacting.

Undertaking reform is a complex, epic challenge that requires us to answer the question of what justice should mean and how we put that into practice.

Resources

In This Episode

How the US prison system was developed as a more humane alternative to corporal punishments like flogging or branding
Why the post-emancipation Black Codes led to the disproportionate incarceration of formerly enslaved people, prison overcrowding and violence
How restorative justice repairs harms by having all stakeholders invested in the process
Defining justice in a framework of relationship and integration and other models of non-punitive justice

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