Some people really get upset when you’re not interested in punishment. They think justice is retaliation. I’ve been called so many things when I’ve said i don’t want the other person punished for the harm they have caused me. That repair & harm aren’t the same thing.

Naive, too soft hearted, I don’t know better, walked over, sensitive. I’ve been called it all for accepting apologies or even if there wasn’t one, for not wanting them punished anyways.

What “justice” will harming someone else do for me? For others? For them?

I have no interest in participating in a culture or a system that requires I inflict violence or be hell bent on making someone else hurt so that my humanity is supposedly protected.

A system that wants to wash its hands of it’s own part in creating harm.

I’m not naive. I am soft hearted and I work hard to cultivate and protect that softness in a world hellbent on cruelty. I believe in consequences when necessary but we need to remember even that is shaped by living in a society that says if you don’t have money you should starve.

I have a small example. Someone stole from me once. It was something I needed that cost what was a good amount of money for me at that time. It was caught on camera. I asked only for it to be returned to me. They apologized to me & returned it. They had needed money. Why punish?

If someone stole from me today and it was because they were an exploitated low wage worker and needed the money, I would give them however much money I could.

The theft I care about are the one committed by their employer & a system that doesn’t care for the needs of people.

It’s more complicated when someone commits more serious harms but there are just ways to address those harms. The way that is normalized in our society is not justice. And so many harms are never addressed at all.

Often, what we are looking for will never be found in punishment.

I’m interested in turning toward how addiction to punishment, and the cruelty of it, is found in our families, our homes, our relationships, our communities. You’ll find it often in how we “deal with” children.

Letting go of that addiction to punishment is an internal practice.