Injustice in Justice

Hello World!

It is Frida Friday which means time for a new update on my blog. Thank you all for tuning back in, it's  much appreciated...

Wow. this week truly opened my eyes as to what the victims experience is truly like within the criminal justice system. Never before had I witnessed firsthand such questionable decisions made at the expense of potentially the general public, but more on that later... ( I want to dissect my week day by day if that makes any sense)

Wednesday (3/22/2017)

The day started with the typical victim-letter mailing and other administrative work which I have come to enjoy. Upon arriving though, I was notified that some sort of media crew would be coming later that day for some clips because the Victim Services had won some sort of award that will be awarded on April 3rd officially. I didn't think much of it since I didn't think I would be a part of the filming, but they wanted me to play the victim for a quick clip. Let me just say I don't think that Hollywood is in my near future, but hey it was fun.

Once all of that was over, I had to recount over 2000 ribbons for Victim's Rights Week because the inmates at Perryville Prison apparently aren't that great at counting (at least those who had to count/make the ribbons, then again there were 2000 and I too had trouble). It was hard, but you gotta do what you gotta do as they say.

Thursday (3/23/2017)

On thursday I was hit with a dose of reality. As excited as I was to see what the parole hearings are like, never did I imagine the intensity involved with each hearing.

The first parole hearing involved many parties, the victims family, a different victim's letter, the inmate, the inmate's mother, and the Arizona Justice Project (and obviously the Board of Executive Clemency).  The inmate was sentenced 25 years to life (with a chance of parole) for murder in the first degree. At the young age of 17, the inmate and two other friends would attempt to hitchhike and then eventually would end up killing the driver. What is especially interesting is that this was not their first time doing this.
 In fact,  they had been suspected of doing this similar crime along the same highway in Texas, but there wasn't enough concrete evidence. Also, all of their supposed victims had been killed (and died) except for one who somehow survived being stabbed 13 times. (this was the victim that wrote the letter to the board). Personally, after hearing this backstory, along with hearing about his initial psych evaluation where he mentioned having killing thoughts, and lets not forgot the testimony from the murdered victim's parents, I wouldn't let him out.
Fortunately enough for him though, the Arizona Justice Project, a legal and support team made up of ASU law students whose goal is to help certain inmates pro-bono). The board seemed to be very intrigued by this group. To me it seemed that this made the board members want to let him out because he had this extensive "support system."
When the inmate had a chance to speak, his main  focus was to show how well he had done in prison, not receiving violations, taking many classes, teaching classes, etc. In the prison, he was an example to follow. If I am being honest, I do not feel that life in prison and life in the real world are comparable whatsoever. There is much more of a sense of freedom and leeway when one as out; life is more gray than clear cut, but in prison, it seems like the lines are more defined since one is under 24/7 supervision.
Back to the case. From my perspective, the inmate kept dismissing what he had done "he was young", and then would move directly back to showing all of his accomplishments, almost treating this hearing like a job interview which is pretty ironic since he taught job-interview classes which would only add to the irony since he had never had a real job being locked up at 17.
What really got to me was that this man at 40 some years old, mature enough to understand the severity of his actions, was not fazed at all, throughout the entire hearing he maintained a stoic demeanor showing no remorse, and continuously blaming his actions on others and his age. I don't know about any of you but as a 17 year old myself, my idea of hanging out with my friends does not involve hijacking cars and murdering their owners. There really is no justification for murder. especially if it was not accidental. I am a firm believer in second chances, however to me, there is a difference with wanting to change your life and not recognizing the severity of your actions.

Now obviously the board decided to release him, although I disagree,  I hope he will behave while on parole, and is on the road to changing his life...

Apart from this hearing, I also had the chance to observe another one that definitely had me feeling some type of way to say the least.

This next hearing involved a man who had accidentally murdered someone and was sentenced to 25 years to life for first degree murder even though it was accidental. This inmate had formally requested an official translator (which is in the realms of his rights as an inmate), and instead, the board did not provide any sort of translator they just asked the CO on duty to translate last minute because he was hispanic. Unfortunately, this led to poor translation at the expense of the inmate. Although this inmate had a plan once he'd be released, it was not adequately portrayed by the CO,  and the board was not fully aware on what the inmate's plans were. Also, this parole hearing kind of took the turn for the worst when the board members found out that he was an undocumented immigrant; things became a bit more political in my opinion. One board member went on a rant on how this inmate does not respect the law of the land because he had illegally crossed over 30+ years ago, it seemed as though she was more enraged by his legality as opposed to the actual crime at hand. Now this inmate already had an ICE detainer, and had expressed his desire to return to Mexico, so if I was the one who was so irritated by "his lack of respect for the country", I would have had him released so he'd then be deported so tax dollars wouldn't have been "wasted" on his care in prison. But I guess the board had different plans.

Anyways, this week has really opened my eyes to seeing the injustices that exist on both sides of the
 criminal justice system.

Thanks for reading.

-Frida