Letter From an Inmate

I am an incarcerated person working on what I believe to be a relatively unique and comprehensive model for systemic transformation of the U.S. criminal justice system though a stepwise, bottom-up process. I’m reaching out to you through the assistance of some people on the outside who have been helping me get my work made available for review online. 

What I have developed so far can be seen at this site, where you will find, among other materials, a research paper I have authored entitled Positive Cooperative Justice: The Pragmatic Alternative for Fighting Fire with Fire. This paper is still very much a work in progress. However, it already covers the key points concerning the needs for replacement (rather than reform) of existing criminal justice components with more functional, research based and ethically sound alternatives. 

It goes on to outline what Positive Cooperative Justice (PCJ) replacement components might consist of, and from there to propose ways in which funding might be secured for such endeavors. The basis for determining what should be considered for inclusion within the PCJ framework are covered in some detail as well. Briefly, these are that practices should be grounded in scientific evaluation, but should also be tempered with a commitment to aim always towards working to prevent those harms which can be prevented and improving the outcomes of situations wherein harms have occurred, while holding people accountable in meaningful and functional ways. 

This model is also one which would seek to invert the effects of the business aspects inherent to the existing systems. The current criminal justice system is in no small part so difficult to reform due to the fact that its practices have bene fine-tuned to generate tremendous wealth for select people and groups. This goes far beyond the discussions of private prisons which all too often dominate reform narratives, and gets into everything from security hardware and vehicles on into the kinds of training employees get and from whom, executive salaries, exclusive vendor and service provider contracts and constellations upon constellations of other expensive and all too often overpriced things. 

In spite of and in addition to the enormous expenditures prisons themselves are typically kept going on the backs of the prisoners themselves, who work as slaves in almost every essential operational job position. There are over 300 billion dollars to account for in relation to law enforcement and prisons in a given year. The benefits suit only the narrow interests of a select body of profit seeking parties at the expense of the aggrieved and violence- or addiction-afflicted communities, or more generally, the majority of Americans. 

PCJ would seek to reverse this arrangement. It would seek to generate tangible infrastructure-related and economic benefits for the communities served and all parties affected by interpersonal turmoil. At the same time, this model would require that every effort is made to ensure that it does not exploit participants, and instead helps individuals meet their own needs and realize their own goals, as appropriately balanced against needs for reciprocity or reparations wherever required. 

This paper also includes a basic business plan in rough format, which it is hoped might be of use toward the development of a proof-of-concept PCJ community center. This would be a facility along with all constituent components designed to truly serve a community. A place which would be centrally located, rich in resources, inviting, community owned and transparently operated, providing services and opportunities for all. 

It is my hope that the documents I have put up on this site might act as a starting point for a grassroots effort to bring this concept of PCJ first into the public imagination and then from imagination into reality. This is obviously something I’d need a lot of help with. In fact, I’d say it’s generally bigger than me! 

So mainly I’m hoping not just for help in further developing the existing materials but that others will step up to help further develop associated materials, refine the details of how things might be proposed to work at a given location (while leaving room for local autonomy and flexibilities within the framework), contribute ideas, experience and knowledge, and help lay the groundwork for building these ideas into something tangible. 

I acknowledge as well that my credentials as a researcher are lacking, but submit that the work I have done speaks for itself. That said, as you will see throughout the paper, there are numerous places wherein I have noted that, due to my unique circumstances as an incarcerated person, I am not always able to access the information necessary to cite my sources. As a prisoner, my access to information is highly constrained. I have been fortunate to obtain some amount of the primary source materials necessary towards the undertaking of a project of this scope. 

However, many blanks remain needing to be filled. I also must apologize that in order to get the current iteration of this paper out to the world, certain sacrifices had to be made in terms of time management. I wound up choosing to favor the quantity of topics covered over the quality of the text. This manuscript is in desperate need of a pass at proofreading, but that will have to wait for future revisions. I have chosen for the time being to remain anonymous for various reasons. 

If you would like to be in contact with me, please use the Contact page of this website.

Thank you for your interest.