I think prisons - cages for humans - are one of the most disturbing things in our culture.
My first job with my Master’s degree in Mental Health Counseling was setting up the new family therapy program in the juvenile court system for a 3 county circuit. What a mind, heart, and eye opener that was.
When I pass by a prison I am overwhelmed with grief. I have learned through my craniosacral therapist experience to feel and process my deepest emotions.
I think prisons - cages for humans - are one of the most disturbing things in our culture.
I know, I know, you may say, “Oh, Janel, we need them because people are bad.”
But no, THAT is the problem: the fact that we have people who can not function in society, who do kill others. What kind of humanity are we? That we keep bringing humans to this planet - fucking with no regard for the outcome for the
person who may be conceived, or for one’s self as the mother or the father who will now physically, emotionally, financially, morally and spiritually responsible for that person. But we live in a culture that not value or support mothering, for the BABY.
That is why my work, my life inquiries about the issues I care about all led me to focusing on the root cause. Mother-baby disruption, unwanted humans, no cultural plan or will to #fundmothering.
What kind of society are we that we see no problem with incarceration of humans? The unfairness of the system? The profiting of incarcerating other humans?
And we do not seek to go to the root of it - disconnection.
““It is impossible to understand addiction without asking what relief the addict finds, or hopes to find, in the drug or the addictive behaviour.”
”
My brother, Charles, was born when I was fourteen, and my mother was 40. I had an older brother, age 21, who was already married and he and his wife had miscarried a baby. That little brother is now 49 and was arrested recently - a parole violation - for drinking.
This is a spontaneous painting I did - for my brother - in July, 2019, when I learned he had been arrested.
His life has been a huge struggle since he was wrongfully charged and found guilty of a felony in 2000. He was sentenced to ten years. Within two years, the prosecuting attorney (Iowa), made a heroic, dying-from-cancer effort to get my brother released. The attorney admitted he had trumped up the charge and that my brother should have never been charged.
My brother served 2.5 years of a wrongful conviction with a ten year sentence, while his daughter had - and survived - cancer. He was targeted by law enforcement multiple times. He and I have talked numerous times about writing a book about his story.
While he was incarcerated his fourth child was born. During the two-weeks of not knowing where he was when he first went to prison, his wife went into pre-term labor. She was in labor and deliver in one week while their five year-old was in another section of hospital with his
father-in-law, being diagnosed with leukemia.
Ten years later, when our father was dying, and my brother spent the night at my house, we were sitting on the floor in my semi-dark living room, both so opened. Another family member was staying at the hospital with our father, giving me a break from the 24-7 vigil.
My brother shared with me the experience of learning of his five-year-old daughter’s diagnosis. He was treated badly by the person who told him. I recently watched the “Central Park 5” and in the scene where ____ learns of his sister’s death, I sobbed and sobbed. The Chaplain was cold, but the guard with him held him, did not react to his deep emotion - anger from his wrongful conviction that kept him from his sister.
I have been appalled all over again for the treatment and experience of my brother. I am very interested in collaborating on criminal and juvenile justice reform with my art, my therapy, my sleuthing, my filmmaking. Let me know what you think we can do together.