Where to start with this tweet. Because of the pandemic, prisons are closed, but if they weren't I would invite you to attend our victim awareness class at CSP LAC where you would meet people who as children faced unfathomable situations of abuse, neglect and trauma. https://twitter.com/StevenHerbert/status/1263525647260872704

Yes, people are responsible for their actions. But almost every person I've met in prison was a victim in some way before they ever created harm. As a person who experienced losing a loved one to homicide, I am most interested in making sure no one else has this experience.

And punishing people has been a failure. It doesn't create healing or accountability, just more trauma and violence. Yes, we need to create safety and make sure that people don't continue harming, but a lifetime in prison for every person who commits a crime isn't how to do this

Many victims have unmet needs that are not addressed in any way by incarceration - they want to know what happened, and why, they want to share about impact, they want to make sure that no one else will experience same harm. Incarceration doesn't give them most of this.

And yes, there are a small number of people who are so damaged that they don't have capacity for healing or change. We don't need a 13.4 billion dollar punitive system for them.