Restorative Justice

 I've been thinking about "restorative justice" this evening.  I was reading about Louisiana's new "Ten Commandments" law and inevitably, someone posted the Seven Tenets of the Satanic Temple.  ti The 6th tenet states:

"People are fallible.  If one makes a mistake, one should do one's best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused."

which is a pretty clear recommendation of something like restorative justice initiatives.

Try as I might, I can't figure a way that I could reasonably rectify it or resolve any harm caused by it.  Surely, secret infidelity is not admirable, but there are few modern societies that criminalize it.  I sorely wanted to rectify the harm I caused my former partner, but was not allowed the opportunity.  

Indeed, my offense itself caused harm to no one.  The fallout from my arrest, conviction, incarceration, probation, and registry requirements is what caused the harm.  I know that it caused a lot unhappy feelings among my loved ones and my community.  Still, most of the harm caused by my conviction is harm that I have suffered.

Perhaps it is appropriate for a guilty party to suffer, but I wonder why it has been necessary that I have suffered so for acting in a way that harmed no one.

Corrections personnel are quick to dismiss that kind of thinking as minimization.  That's really just because they don't actually have a good answer for it.  I've spoken to other PFRs who have deeply internalized the "therapy speak" of their treatment programs.  They will focus on the "but what ifs?" of cases like mine and also accuse me of minimizing.  I don't think I'm minimizing what I did or what harm it caused.  But, I don't think maximizing it into the worst possible scenario is appropriate either.

I think a reasonable person would likely agree that the penalties for a crime ought to be proportional to the harm it causes.  However, sex crimes are considered especially heinous and the public is often completely unaware of what most people on PFR lists actually did.

My arrest and 62 felony charges were all over the local and regional news.  I often wonder what people thought I must have done given that truly bombastic number.  What did people who knew me think?  What did strangers think?  What did my former students  and their parents think?

Of course, there seems to be no journalistic responsibility to provide updates on criminal cases.  There were no follow up reports that indicated that all 62 felonies related to online communication with a single person who was actually an adult.  No deep dive into the manipulative tactics that the vigilante team used while needling me for information.  There were a few short reports when I pled guilty to only two of the 62 charges against me.  The media was happy to put me on public display when it appeared that I might be some kind of serial predator who'd been lurking in the classroom, but declined to give my story any more coverage when it turned out that my case was typical example of the way that DAs trump up extra charges when indicting someone.

At any rate, had I actually harmed someone, I know that I'd have been glad to do everything in my power to make amends.  My incarceration and social ostracism have not made anything better for anyone.

I don't really like being awake.

When I'm asleep, sometimes nice things happen.

People who used to love me are present and still do love me. 

I meet new people who care about me. 

Sometimes there are people who will care for me and take care of me. 

When I'm asleep, sometimes I don't have responsibilities. 

I don't feel like a failure. 

Or a loser. 

Sometimes I don't feel guilt or self loathing. 

I don't feel like I want to be better but I don't know how to be. 

Sometimes I don't feel like my personhood has been revoked. 

Sometimes I'll settle for sometimes. 

Sometimes is better than this. 

Thoughts on the 2024 Election

In this election, people who refuse to hire (or even interview) me for a position with their companies because I have  2 felony convictions will line up in droves to vote for a man with 34 felony convictions to be our president.

(Yes, my two felonies are sex charges, but Trump was also found liable for sexual abuse in 2023 in civil Court, something none of his supporters seem remotely bothered about.) 

***

In good news, I figured out that I am able to vote in Louisiana, so, I'll be casting my vote accordingly.

***

Maybe I should insist that my felonies were the result of fake charges and a rigged and corrupt justice system.  Maybe then people would associate me with Trump and give me a job. 

(Whats funny, is that Trump is actually 100% correct that the system is rigged and corrupt, just not in the way he means.)

***

It would be nice if this all led to Republicans getting serious about criminal justice reform, but it won't. Mostly because any rigging or corruption that existed in the falsifying records case against Trump is the same rigging and corruption that exists in every criminal case within the system. The GOP has been fine with all of that for some time. They're just mad now because a man they liked was found guilty.

***

Maybe I can get Trump to give me a job, one felon to another. 

Just kidding. Everyone knows Trump doesn't pay his bills. 

There are always obstacles.

I qualified for help finding work through Louisiana Rehabilitational Services in January. After a little bit of them trying to figure out what exactly to do with me given my situation, we decided that I could probably earn a decent living as a truck driver, so I enrolled in a month-long CDL training program.  

Two and a half weeks into that course, my new PO told me that I wouldn't be allowed to travel out of state for work AT ALL.  I'd been intending to drive "Over the Road," which civilians call "Long Haul," but suddenly that was off the table.  I've been searching for a driving job that's reasonably commutable ever since.  Unfortunately, most local driving jobs require either prior experience or the endorsement to drive a manual transmission truck.  I had originally said that I was interested in learning to drive a standard (mostly because I like acquiring new skills), but I was discouraged by one of my instructors, so I only trained on the automatics.  I've gotten a couple of good leads lately, but it's slow going.

Last week, I found out about a free forklift certification program offered by a local educational nonprofit.  They also offer HiSET classes, so I reached out both to register for the training and to offer my services to their HiSET program.  I found out today that I can't do either because they have students that are 16 and 17 (and ANY contact with a juvenile is a violation of my probation).  This time I'm barred from both training and service.  Isn't probation supposed to be about supervised reintegration?  Most of the time I feel like it's more of a barrier to establishing something resembling a normal life.

I haven't given up on driving trucks.  I'm still looking.  But, since finishing school, my executive function hasn't been fantastic.  It's easy for entire days to get away from me with very little to nothing accomplished towards any of my goals.   

My friend Anthony came to visit me for a few days last week, and for that duration I gave myself permission to take a vacation from the pursuit of employment/guilt over not pursuing employment.  They were a good several days.

It feels like every time I feel like I've found a good opportunity and things are looking up, some new obstacle or barrier presents itself and prevents me from succeeding.

If I weren't on probation, I'd have a job by now (ironically, having a job or profession is a condition of my probation).  If I hadn't needed to leave Shreveport, I'd have a job by now.  If my physical health were better, I'd have a job by now.  The last is the only one over which I have any control, and I haven't been responsible in terms of doing anything about it.  Here, we circle back to "poor executive function."

I don't let myself wallow in it for very long anymore.  Adversity constantly presenting itself in new and surprising ways has become the norm in my life.  But, I'm approaching a year since my release from prison and selling some items on eBay is the only thing that I've done to make any money.  This isn't sustainable and things become a little more financially dire every day.

I have so many skills that would make me well suited to so many positions.  At the same time, I'm legally prohibited from attaining a lot of those positions.  Others simply won't hire felons.  Still others won't consider people with a Sex Offense.  The set of all jobs for which I'll even be considered is a small one--especially out here in the second world.

Now, we're getting somewhere...maybe.

 A couple of weeks ago I was spiraling pretty hard.  I had felt hopeless and like I was trapped.  I had suicidal ideation.  I almost felt the way that I did when I was in prison.

On top of that, I became really forgetful.  I'd lose track of tasks that I meant to complete.  I'd get distracted in the middle of tasks and forget to return to them.  I felt like a scattered mess.

But, this week, I've finally started holding myself to a daily schedule.  I'm only on my third day of it, but the first two went well.  I kept busy and felt like I'd done something worthwhile at the end of the day.  It's not a regular schedule (the things that I do every day like meditating, taking medication, tending to the animals), but I've been making it every night right after taking notes about the things I did that day.  It's really just a to-do list with specifically scheduled times for each of the "do"s along with any appointments that I may have.  I've given myself a little grace to deviate when things come up, but so far, so good.

It occurred to me while meditating that I've kind of always needed extra scaffolding to keep me on track.  Working as a high school teacher, I had a pretty regimented built-in schedule.  The periods followed a predictable sequence (most of the time), and I had clear deadlines for the things I needed to do.  But, I learned early in my career that if there was anything extra that was expected of me, I could not be trusted to do it unless I put it into my calendar.  Meetings, conferences, atypical paperwork deadlines.  All these would fall by the wayside if I didn't set reminders.  The faculty would help each other remember to some extend, which was also helpful, but a lot of the time I was the only teacher who needed to attend a conference or meeting.

It makes sense that I need some kind of scaffolding in my daily life now.  I've always been good at taking care of the things that need to be done--especially if those things involved my responsibility to someone or something outside of myself.  I've never really held myself responsible for taking care of my own needs besides rest, relaxation, and recreation.  Doing things for myself that weren't pleasant has been a struggle for a long time.  Finding the self-discipline to hold myself responsible hasn't been easy. But, I'm giving it my best right now.

Busy mind during meditation this morning (and that's ok!  My meditation teacher showed me that I know so little about how meditation--at least this variety--actually works).  Here are some other thoughts that passed through my 20 minute session.

• Thinking about how easy it is to hear the trains pass, even though I live some distance from the tracks.  That turned into wondering what the straight line distance between my house and the tracks might be.  That led to wondering how that compared to shortest driving distance from the tracks.  That led to an estimate that the driving distance was probably only up to 10% longer than the straight line distance.  That led to me wanting to calculate both and see if I'm right.
• Thinking about how I really need to find some volunteer opportunities, especially on Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve/Christmas.  This is my first holiday season (on the outside) without Celia or Granny, and I'm not looking forward to it.
• Thinking about how I'd like to be able to go into nursing homes with a guitar and play a few songs for the residents.  I could start with a short setlist of popular music from the 40's, 50's, and 60's and then take requests for the next time.  I think I'd find that really rewarding.  It would get me out of the house and give me a project.  It would get me making music regularly.  It would make me feel like I was doing something to improve someone else's life.  I should action this plan, but my hesitation to make phone calls that aren't strictly necessary is an obstacle.
• Thinking about moving my things from storage in Shreveport into storage in Natchitoches.  That led to thinking about giving some of my hoard of objects away as Christmas gifts.
• Thinking about how I'm going to be working on my LinkedIn profile with help from my resume' coach, but how I'm going to have to put my charges on there because LinkedIn is considered a social media account.  I'm pretty sure that this kind of compelled speech is unconstitutional, but when I tried to reach out to the ACLU about it, I found a page on the Louisiana Chapter's website that said they were not taking new cases as of December 2021.  Went on to think about how maybe putting it there is OK.  I think part of living a successful life as a PFR (Person Force to Register) is not trying to hide from it.  But I'll talk to my resume' coach about that tomorrow.
• Thinking about how I'm increasingly sure that I have ADHD that I've never managed because I didn't realize it was there.  There are lots of reasons that I may write about in more detail, but one that I noticed today is how I almost always find myself fiddling with something when my hands aren't occupied.  Whenever I'm on a video call with my therapist or doctor or one of my coaches, I will pick up some object off my desk and play with it.  I bought a Koosh Ball for the nostalgia a week or so again and it's been a good fidget toy--even though the dogs keep getting it and eating some of it's tendrils away.  I also think that this tendency to fiddle with things is probably part of the reason why I'd been drawn to model-making, action figures, and ring making.  It's weird when you realize things about yourself that are obvious but you'd never grabbed on to before.
• Thinking about how I wanted to make note of all these thoughts because otherwise they might get lost.
• Thinking about at least 2 or 3 other things that did, indeed, get lost.  Maybe I'll find them again.

Today's agenda includes laundry, punching up my resume', dealing with some finances, a virtual job interview for a cell phone sales job, and doing something for my Dad that I've been meaning to do for over a week.  

Now, I haven't had breakfast yet, and I need to do that because I'm supposed to start laundry at 9:30.  But, this counts as my daily "Create/Explore" task, so I'm checking it off the list.

No writing today, but here are some pictures I've taken.

I'm sad.

 I've been disinclined to write because I have nothing positive to report.  But, I guess non-positive reports are part of this whole process.

I got really upset a few days ago because my ex finally started the process of paying me for my equity in the home we own together.  I sorely need the money since my savings is dwindling and my job prospects seem nonexistent.  But, there's some finality in losing my home.  I didn't want this divorce.  I didn't want to leave my home.  I didn't want to leave Shreveport.  I know I made plenty of bad decisions that ultimately led me here, but it still doesn't quite make sense to me that someone's life can be so totally destroyed so easily.

I made myself go into town today to buy some groceries.  I didn't really want to, but I was out of some essentials.  I felt so sad the whole trip.  I feel so alone.  I miss having a partner.  I miss my ex.  I miss there always being someone there who had my back.  Or who would do nice things for me.  Or buy me little gifts.  I miss having someone that wanted to talk to me every day.

Sometimes, I just want to go back to jail.  Jail is miserable, but at least you don't have any responsibilities.  You have no expectations.  You just exist...barely.  I've nearly depleted my savings and I have little to show for it.  I'm not sure that my housing situation is stable.  Moving is frustrating already, but moving as a Sex Offender is even worse.  I could just go back to jail for three years and save a ton of money and lose a bunch of weight.  Wallow in my depression for awhile.  Then, when I got out, I'd be a lot more free than I am not while on probation.

I'm not serious.  But, sometimes it really doesn't feel like all of this struggle is worth anything.  It's crazy how difficult it is just to survive.

I see the doctor tomorrow about adjusting my medication.  Maybe that will help.  I'm increasingly convinced that I have the wombo-combo of Depression and ADHD.  Lately, I'm simultaneously overwhelmed by and completely disinterested in mundane tasks.  It's hard to get fired up about applying for jobs when 95% of applications will never even be met with a rejection email.  Or when you have a hard time figuring how to start on your morning where you need to shower, send a package, have breakfast, and go get groceries.