A Legislative Agenda of Care
Two years ago, I co-authored the three-part series “A Restorative Pathway to Decarceration and Abolition” for The Bollard with abolitionist organizer and anthropology professor Catherine Besteman. From January through March of 2023, we envisioned what practical changes could be implemented before, during and after incarceration to keep the generations-long journey toward abolishing Maine’s criminal punishment system moving forward.
This year, as the new state legislative session begins, I am asking for your focused political engagement toward caring for and protecting both victims/survivors of interpersonal harm and the victims/survivors of the criminal punishment system that fills our prisons and jails without improving public safety; in fact, that system makes Maine less safe in many ways.
We live in an incredibly violent society where interpersonal harm occurs every minute of every day. Rather than meeting that harm with support for healing and repair, the criminal punishment system uses victims’ pain and trauma as weapons against those who harmed them. Survivors are almost invariably re-victimized by the State during police interviews, prosecutorial depositions and trial or sentencing preparation, and the process of seeking restitution.
Maine needs to establish a commission to examine the ways crime victims are treated by this system that purportedly exists for their benefit. And state lawmakers need to fund community-based organizations that serve victims of harm, especially those that practice restorative and transformative justice and those that provide support services for domestic violence and sexual assault.
Maine also needs legislation that supports non-carceral avenues of accountability, healing and repair outside the criminal punishment system. For thousands of years, long before this land was colonized, brutalized and covered with courts, jails and prisons designed to cage adults and children, people lived in community with one another and addressed harm in ways that kept communities whole. Our criminal punishment system tears “offenders” out of their families and neighborhoods, prevents them from meaningfully taking responsibility for the harm they caused, and leaves victims and survivors to fend for themselves in their search for healing and repair. Some relief is possible, if, for example, one can provide proper receipts to the Restitution Board in a timely fashion.
Maine should establish statutory support for the voluntary payment of financial reparations to victims/survivors. We must also provide substantive relief from excessive sentences for those who pose no threat to public safety, and review the sentences of people who committed their offenses as emerging adults, with an eye toward resentencing and potential release.
Finally, Maine needs mechanisms that create meaningful and empowered oversight of the Department of Corrections and all county jails. During my sixteen and a half years of incarceration, I have witnessed or endured innumerable Constitutional, civil, and prisoner rights violations; denial of medical and dental care for months and years on end; racial discrimination; targeting and retaliatory actions against incarcerated people and staff; and all manner of casual abuses of power.
Every so often, a news article comes out and exposes one or two of the most egregious cases. Then, maybe someone is fired or placed on administrative leave for a while, and the rest of the staff and leaders involved get demoted or shuffled around to another position or facility. Soon, the public stops caring again (out of sight, out of mind), people are promoted again or reinstated, and the harmful behaviors continue until the next gross violation makes the papers.
So many of the harms inflicted on incarcerated people — and the self-injurious behaviors and suicides that can follow — could be prevented, corrected or ended if an independent ombudsman or other empowered body of oversight existed. Maine lawmakers need to build public accountability and oversight into one of the few public institutions that doesn’t have any: the criminal punishment system.
John Stuart Mill famously said that the only thing evil needs to prevail is for good people to do nothing. As Maine’s 132nd legislative session begins, please encourage your state representative and senator to prioritize care for those most harmed by the criminal punishment system. Let them know their constituents want an end to the draconian practices that have proven again and again to be ineffective at improving public safety. Tell them to support restorative, reparative and supportive practices of care for the needs and wellbeing of victims/survivors and those of us who have caused harm. Together, we can bring about the structural changes that lead us to a safer and more secure future.
Leo Hylton is a PhD student at George Mason University’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, currently incarcerated at Maine State Prison. His education and work are focused on Social Justice Advocacy and Activism, with a vision toward an abolitionist future. You can reach him at: Leo Hylton #70199, 807 Cushing Rd., Warren, ME 04864, or leoshininglightonhumanity@gmail.com.
