MCDOWELL COUNTY, West Virginia — When the flood water swept through McDowell County, West Virginia, in February, Ashley Rutherford sat in her wheelchair, unable to get out of her home as the water started coming through the doorway. One of her sons put rubber rain boots on her to cover her legs wh...
Do you not see the inherent contradiction in that? Our system punishes people for being products of their environment interacting with their genes. Not reform, PUNISHMENT. Do you take away a child’s toys for getting sick?
holding people responsible doesn’t necessarily imply prison or punishment… sure the way we do it now is exactly that, but it doesn’t have to be… rehabilitation doesn’t have to be about punishing someone
But if their actions are a direct result of their genes and environment, how is that something to be “responsible” for? Are you responsible for being born without legs? The punitive (fine people money they probably don’t have anyway) carceral (kick the can of building better conditions down the road for another generation to deal with) system was built primarily to oppress minorities anyhow, so why defend it? Toss it on the scrap heap of history and build something less horrific.