While vio­lence spreads like a virus and has been insti­tu­tion­al­ized over gen­er­a­tions, per­spec­tive can skew as oppres­sors keep redefin­ing what it constitutes.

Vio­lence is typ­i­cal­ly attrib­uted to the oppressed, while the actions of the oppres­sors are deemed nat­ur­al, or sanc­tioned. What a mis­take and mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of real­i­ty. Non­state, and sub­state, actors are held to dif­fer­ent stan­dards than the states stand­ing over them. Vio­lence should not be a sub­jec­tive weapon. Vio­lence is harm­ful wher­ev­er it occurs, and has the effect of spread­ing like a virus.

In 2013, the Nation­al Acad­e­mies of Sci­ence released a report, “The Con­ta­gion of Vio­lence”, that shows how vio­lence acts like a dis­ease.²⁹ The pos­i­tive impli­ca­tion from this report is that dis­eases can be cured through pre­ven­tion to expo­sure as well as inter­ven­tions. We can explore new poli­cies to heal from state-spon­sored vio­lence, like erod­ing the prison-indus­tri­al com­plex to make amends for gen­er­a­tions of mass incar­cer­a­tion of dis­pro­por­tion­ate num­bers of men and women from minor­i­ty communities.

In addi­tion to these changes, a shift in focus from pun­ish­ment to reha­bil­i­ta­tion will be a nec­es­sary fresh start. In Philadel­phia, Dis­trict Attor­ney Lar­ry Kras­ner has been cam­paign­ing to end mass incar­cer­a­tion through a mul­ti-faceted approach to rethink­ing crim­i­nal­iza­tion. With three decades of expe­ri­ence as a pub­lic defend­er, Kras­ner now pros­e­cutes cas­es informed by his back­ground of fight­ing against the lies and mis­con­duct of police offi­cers. In his new, more expan­sive posi­tion over­see­ing more than three hun­dred pros­e­cu­tors, Kras­ner takes a whole-sys­tems-wide per­spec­tive on the eco­nom­ic, edu­ca­tion-based, and envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions that exac­er­bate rates of incar­cer­a­tion. This view is inspired by Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow, which pro­vides analy­sis on the dis­pro­por­tion­ate num­bers of peo­ple of col­or who are impris­oned. Kras­ner acknowl­edges that in his role as D.A. he serves the com­mon­wealth, which means all the cit­i­zens of the city.³⁰

Mean­while, Mar­i­lyn Mos­by, the State’s Attor­ney for Bal­ti­more, has made a bold deci­sion to not bring crim­i­nal charges against indi­vid­u­als arrest­ed for pos­ses­sion of mar­i­jua­na. As she said in a state­ment in Jan­u­ary 2019, “Pros­e­cut­ing these cas­es have no pub­lic safe­ty val­ue, dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly impacts com­mu­ni­ties of col­or and erodes pub­lic trust, and is a cost­ly and coun­ter­pro­duc­tive use of lim­it­ed resources.”³¹ Mosby’s approach hinges upon lever­ag­ing account­abil­i­ty, expos­ing injus­tice, and being much more open with her com­mu­ni­ty in terms of trust. In an inter­view with NPR, Mos­by explained that she doesn’t need to open the news to find out what’s going wrong in her com­mu­ni­ty, she only needs to open the door. This is the kind of blunt hon­esty and direct con­nec­tion with the real­i­ties of what’s hap­pen­ing all around us that can help us begin to work on res­o­lu­tions to some of the wide­spread con­flicts that affect our communities.