Privilege, Survival, and Community Care: What Being Arrested Taught Me
Do we really expect a system that is so intentionally cruel to help anyone who finds themselves at the mercy of its whims?
People don’t believe me when I say this but without the support of my family and the resources they have access to I would not have made it to where I am today. I would either be in prison, homeless, or dead.
When I say this to people they tend to respond with, “No, don’t talk about yourself that way. That isn’t true. You are so smart, capable, and creative.” As if people who end up in those situations aren’t.
They either don’t want to see the truth or really don’t get it. The only way I made it to today and am still able to semi-function is because my parents have money and were able to pull me out of the hole I dug myself.
I am not somehow smarter, better, or more resilient than other people who find themselves on the wrong side of the law. I am not less of a criminal than the other criminals. Nope none of that.
I was a completely burnt out undiagnosed, traumatized autistic adhd person who was literally at my wits end and was acting reckless because I couldn’t cope with society and didn’t care what happened to me anymore. I had nothing, no money to speak of. And I had kept everything a secret from everyone I knew so I was alone. If my parents didn’t have the resources to hire me a good lawyer, to pay my bail bond, to fly me home to Texas so I could live with them, to give me a comfortable home, food to eat, all the time I needed to recover before looking for a job, all of that is an absolute luxury and honestly I am terrified to think about where I would be today if they hadn’t been able to do that for me.
The hard truth of the matter is, I “got off easy” because I am a white girl who comes across as non-threathening from a white Christian family who has money. That is it and that is all.
During my time dealing with the system I met many people who were not so lucky. They didn’t have support like I had. Some of them came from families who were never able to fully provide for them so they started doing desperate things young just to survive. For many, this has meant almost a lifetime of being in and out of the system. This isn’t because they are bad people. They are trying to survive.
Look at the research and you’ll see the number of neurodivergent people who end up homeless and/or behind bars is astounding and downright shameful. We don’t conform to this patriarchal capitalist system and due to that so many of us run into odds with it at some point. It is so easy to blame the individual and turn a blind eye to what got them there.
Since being arrested and convicted, I’ve been turned away from jobs, housing, lost friends, lost what little money I had, spent years in extreme burnout, all the while people around me never wanted to know my real experience.
They wanted to stay comfortable in their assumptions. To them, I had been manipulated by an older man, it wasn’t really me who decided to break the law, I was depressed because I was living in “sin”, what I really needed was some Jesus in my life, and the list goes on but rarely has anyone asked what my actual experience was.
It’s like they are scared to know the truth. That it wasn’t just individual bad decisions but a lifetime of not getting the support I needed, a lifetime of constantly living outside my window of tolerance, and a lifetime of no one believing how much I was actually struggling. All within a society who would rather someone who thinks like me be silenced.
Unfortunately, for many people who think like me that is what happens. They get disappeared into the system. Everyone blames it on their individual actions and as a result extend little to no sympathy.
No one wants to confront the toxic environment we all live in. The fact that it is unhealthy for all of us. That most crime is due to desperation, trying to survive, trying to cope in a world that makes no sense and asks you to sell yourself just to get by. Asks you to turn a blind eye to oppression, genocide, rape, and so many other horrile things.
No matter what you see you still have to wake up the next morning and go to work like nothing happened. Like your tax dollars aren’t funding a genocide. Like the groceries you buy weren’t grown and packed by incarcerated people who have become modern day slaves. Like the people who run our country aren’t rapists and pedophiles, who break laws in our faces all day every day. Like our president doesn’t have 34 felonies and yet somehow gets to run our country while meanwhile many people who have even one felony can’t find a job or safe housing.
Look at all of that and ask yourself why any of us should be okay, should be functioning “normally”, should be going about "business as usual”?
And more to that point, do we really expect a system that is so intentionally cruel to help anyone who finds themselves at the mercy of its whims? Being incarcerated leaves you completely vulnerable to this amoral system. You lose the little protections we have against the system. You are seen as a pawn to be used as they see fit. An example to others of what happens when you step a toe out of line.
Nowadays people seem to be more aware now that community is the answer. That relying on these systems that isolate and abuse us needs to end.
However, what I have noticed in conversations with people is that a staggering amount of cognitive dissonance is still present within them. They know things are bad, they know we need radical change, they recognize the importance of community support and care, but, they still act as if that change is never going to happen.
I have friends who know all of this, talk about it regularly, joke about revolution, but yet are still living out the exact same societal script that was handed to them by their parents. We could all decide to form a community together tomorrow, to share resources, to share labor, to share childcare, to grow our own food, to rely less on these parasitic systems, and they talk about that often. But that is all it is, talk. It’s like they are scared to make the first move. The fantasy sounds nice, but the devil you know is better than the one you don’t right?
All of us, myself included, need to stop waiting for someone else to start living differently and start living differently ourselves. We all think, “I’m just one person, what can I possibly do?” but you have way more power than you realize.
For example, here in Galveston, we have a small church that decided to turn the building into a community and resource center for people experiencing homelessness in our community. They have a free clinic staffed with doctors from the local hospital, therapists, and a pharmacy. They have a place for people to wash their clothes, to shower, a cafeteria that serves breakfast and lunch, and a library.
An entire floor of the church was turned into a “free store” where the community has been encouraged to donate anything they don’t need anymore clothes, furniture, kitchen appliances, plates, comforters, computers, all of it. They partner with the Galveston Housing Authority and help people get housing. When they do get into an apartment they can furnish it from everything in the free store.
I remember the first time I went there to volunteer and they were showing me around. We walked into the room where they have church on Sunday. Instead of it being lined with pews or plastic chairs they had replaced everything in the sanctuary with a bunch of couches. They said people come in here during the day to get out of the heat and sleep in a comfortable, safe place.
I bring up this church because I love what they are doing but also because they have been a catalyst for a mindset shift in our community. They challenge us on what a church can be, on what supporting your community looks like. They don’t push religion down anyone’s throat. They don’t have an arms length list of requirements you have to meet before they will help you like many places do. They welcome everyone there and they don’t ask anything in return.
I’ve been showing this church to everyone I know and encouraging them to go volunteer. I am not religious myself but for me it’s not about that. To me, this church is a great way to show people what real community support looks like. I have been a part of leftist activist groups who do the same thing but it is much harder to get someone who hears “leftist activist” and has a Fox News montage play in their head to come and see what we are doing. A church, however, is an easier approach.
Adaptive approaches like this one are going to be crucial to building a community centered future.
Do you want to lower crime? Then provide people with what they need to actually live. Treat people with dignity, humanity, and love.
You want to know why someone ended up in jail? Look at their material conditions, look at what they had to do just to survive, and tell me you would have walked out of that same situation unscathed.
I am tired of people treating others as less than simply because they happen to be born into better conditions than them. Like being born into a family with money makes you better than everyone else. The indoctrination we have all gone through since we were born wants us to individualize everything. None of it is true. We are a collective species. Love and community are the only things that will save us.
I want to hear from more people who have been trapped in the criminal justice system. They have seen the system bare its teeth. They know the dark dusty corners of this society more than anyone else. Their voices need to be uplifted as we work towards a society that cares for all its members, not just the ones deemed to be producing enough value.