Summers

 

So, I'm back. Remember, I had to duck out of the program after jury duty yesterday.

I was not selected for a jury yesterday; more accurately, I was excused. Let me just say the particular facts in the case before us were uncomfortably close to a situation that had occurred in my family, and I felt it necessary to disclose that.

It's a difficult dilemma. My husband is a lawyer, so I know very well how necessary it is for citizens to participate. And jury duty is a hassle. Everyone knows that. But I think it was the judge who said, we really don't want a jury made up just of people with nothing better to do, and I know that if I or someone I cared about were jammed up in some way, I'd want someone like me on the jury. What does that mean? I'd want somebody who does actively listen, who does try to put aside pre-conceived notions, who does care about the facts and the law.

But I also think it's important to be honest, and when I heard the facts of the case I found myself replaying the other personal event in my mind, and I thought, that can't be the right way to go about this. Every case deserves to be judged on its own merits.

Hard, isn't it?

Which brings me, strangely enough, to the Moms parenting conversation today. The mothers on the program today want us to change the way we think about addicted mothers. They want us to think about what they described as a disproportionate number of women who are addicts because they have been victims themselves -- very often of child abuse and/or other forms of sexual violence -- and turn to drugs as a way to self-medicate. These women, who founded The Rebecca Project for Human Rights, are dedicated to increasing the options for addicted mothers, especially increasing the options in lieu of incarceration.

Think about it, over 200,000 women are in prison or jail in the U.S., according to the Institute on Women & Criminal Justice, and a million women under criminal justice supervision. Two thirds of them are there for non-violent offenses. And nearly two-thirds of the women in prison are mothers, and not just mothers, the primary caregivers. So this is not a small number of people we're talking about. And, what happens to them affects not just them, but the children they are trying to raise.

Worth a listen, I think.

categories: More on Crime & Punishment

2:04 - May 12, 2009

What is this?

Share