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THE PROBLEM:
The probation system operates in a silo, disconnected from oversight by any medical, mental health, public health, child development, sociologic, environmental, educational, or economic societal structures where there are guiding ethics and values which promote care for the basic, humane wellbeing of all citizens.
Lacking sufficient expertise across domains related to human wellbeing,
Probation Officials are winging it...
Sometimes, recklessly.
Probation Officials are winging it...
Sometimes, recklessly.
Absence of humane oversight means the moral compass of the legal system can move out of alignment with the demands of justice:
To PROTECT SOCIETY in a manner that DOES NOT CAUSE UNDUE HARM
to any individual.
Ought not the mantle of responsibility to protect The People from bodily and emotional harm apply to the legal system itself, as it interfaces with all members of the public, including those who have been released from incarceration?
To PROTECT SOCIETY in a manner that DOES NOT CAUSE UNDUE HARM
to any individual.
Ought not the mantle of responsibility to protect The People from bodily and emotional harm apply to the legal system itself, as it interfaces with all members of the public, including those who have been released from incarceration?
A PROPOSED SOLUTION:
The Backbone of Justice Project seeks to change this predicament by:
1) ADDING MULTIDISCIPLINARY ADVISORY BOARDS
to every probation district, so that probation officers are no longer a potential solo, centralized, under-educated, uninformed, unqualified decision-maker exercising inappropriate social authority concerning the medical, safety, holistic wellbeing, and reintegration needs of each person on probation; rather, transferring decision-making authority to a more holistic and educated body of multidisciplinary experts who can better discern individual circumstances and more holistically care for individual and societal wellbeing, and accordingly can thus advise the courts with a higher degree of competence compared to the current systems.
2) ESTABLISHING A PROCESS FOR PEOPLE ON PROBATION TO SEEK ADVOCACY
through these Multidisciplinary Advisory Boards to assure that individual, family, and community safety needs are tended to, especially in terms of accessibility of appropriate medical care and trauma-informed support as part of the reintegration process, particularly to ensure they have someone to reach out to if their medical needs and basic human needs are being harmed by the limited structures of the current probation system itself.
3) GRANTING THESE MULTIDISCIPLINARY ADVISORY BOARDS A VOICE
with the judges, in place of the current role probation officers play (regardless of their lack of expertise-based qualifications or empirical knowledge) in making recommendations regarding access to medical care and other important quality-of-life factors related to reintegration, as well as a voice for processes related to probation status, such as consequences of administrative violations, or requests for early termination of probation or supervised release.
to every probation district, so that probation officers are no longer a potential solo, centralized, under-educated, uninformed, unqualified decision-maker exercising inappropriate social authority concerning the medical, safety, holistic wellbeing, and reintegration needs of each person on probation; rather, transferring decision-making authority to a more holistic and educated body of multidisciplinary experts who can better discern individual circumstances and more holistically care for individual and societal wellbeing, and accordingly can thus advise the courts with a higher degree of competence compared to the current systems.
2) ESTABLISHING A PROCESS FOR PEOPLE ON PROBATION TO SEEK ADVOCACY
through these Multidisciplinary Advisory Boards to assure that individual, family, and community safety needs are tended to, especially in terms of accessibility of appropriate medical care and trauma-informed support as part of the reintegration process, particularly to ensure they have someone to reach out to if their medical needs and basic human needs are being harmed by the limited structures of the current probation system itself.
3) GRANTING THESE MULTIDISCIPLINARY ADVISORY BOARDS A VOICE
with the judges, in place of the current role probation officers play (regardless of their lack of expertise-based qualifications or empirical knowledge) in making recommendations regarding access to medical care and other important quality-of-life factors related to reintegration, as well as a voice for processes related to probation status, such as consequences of administrative violations, or requests for early termination of probation or supervised release.
4) EXPANDING 6TH AMENDMENT RIGHTS
by extending the right to the appointment of counsel by a public defender to those incarcerated or on probation, as a continuation of the Right to Representation beyond trial and through the entirety of any sentence to be served, such that a person in prison or on probation has legal support in bringing to the attention of the court any violations of access to medical care or other decisions or processes by prison or probation officers which could lead to the harm of the individual in prison or on probation (or their families), thereby increasing the effectiveness of 8th Amendment Rights Violations being reviewed by a judge, beyond the scope of the limited judgment of probation officials who may knowingly or unknowingly be causing undue harm to those on their overburdened caseloads.
5) INCREASING PUBLIC EMPATHY REGARDING CRACKS IN THE JUSTICE SYSTEM
by using Empathy-Building Tools in an Awareness Campaign aimed at the general public, policy-makers, justice-system employees, and members of health and public health and social service fields, regarding the pain suffered over the violation or neglect of essential and basic human needs for people involved in the prison and probations systems, along with their families, particularly their children who are considered by researchers and writers even in the US Department of Justice itself as:
"hidden victims of the criminal justice system who are neither acknowledged nor given a platform to be heard."
It's Time to move towards a holistic, integrative rehabilitative justice model
founded on Principles of Change Theories to guide
visionary Prison and Probation Reformation so thoroughly that it
becomes a complete re-creation of what Justice looks like.
The Backbone of Justice is more than a Probation Reform Project,
it is a Transformational Movement
asking us to reevaluate and realign not only Justice,
but the entire socio-cultural context in which Justice functions.
visionary Prison and Probation Reformation so thoroughly that it
becomes a complete re-creation of what Justice looks like.
The Backbone of Justice is more than a Probation Reform Project,
it is a Transformational Movement
asking us to reevaluate and realign not only Justice,
but the entire socio-cultural context in which Justice functions.
THE DYSFUNCTION:
The current model of the U.S. Legal System is either siloed from or in toxic interplay with other aspects of societal functioning, such as economic, education, health, industry, agriculture, food, environmental, or ecological systems. All of these systems lack cohesive, pro-social integration, contributing to disintegration of wellness of people and the planet over the generations.
One way of conceptualizing the siloing and blind-spots of these interrelated systems is thinking of each of them being like a person, wearing on their head a shoebox with small slits cut to see the light of day and sense the world around them. And they are not allowed to turn to see the other systems around them, limiting their ability to view the big picture or their place within it.
In this disconnected state, the Legal System does not have capacity to discern, judge, or estimate the true impact of its own dysfunction. From this disconnected vantage point, it cannot it see its own responsibility for remediating the harmful effects of that dysfunction.
As the system sits siloed, it does not have capacity to guide its own behavior towards more just and effective consequences, for individuals nor for society as a whole.
One way of conceptualizing the siloing and blind-spots of these interrelated systems is thinking of each of them being like a person, wearing on their head a shoebox with small slits cut to see the light of day and sense the world around them. And they are not allowed to turn to see the other systems around them, limiting their ability to view the big picture or their place within it.
In this disconnected state, the Legal System does not have capacity to discern, judge, or estimate the true impact of its own dysfunction. From this disconnected vantage point, it cannot it see its own responsibility for remediating the harmful effects of that dysfunction.
As the system sits siloed, it does not have capacity to guide its own behavior towards more just and effective consequences, for individuals nor for society as a whole.
Natural Law - Order and Disorder
We can make sense of the disorder of these un-integrated human social systems according to the Laws of Nature, given that we are a product of the Nature which has created us.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics is considered one of the most fundamental laws of nature. Known as the Law of Entropy, it states that without external energy to guide order, any system in isolation will tend towards disorder. For example, a tidy room will tend towards messiness without someone intentionally cleaning it up. A dying body breaks down in decay without the organizing lifeforce of breath to keep cellular functioning alive and well.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics is considered one of the most fundamental laws of nature. Known as the Law of Entropy, it states that without external energy to guide order, any system in isolation will tend towards disorder. For example, a tidy room will tend towards messiness without someone intentionally cleaning it up. A dying body breaks down in decay without the organizing lifeforce of breath to keep cellular functioning alive and well.
So too is the Justice System becoming increasingly disordered over time,
bending towards Injustice and downstream social decay.
bending towards Injustice and downstream social decay.
As predicted by the Law of Entropy, the U.S. Legal System is becoming increasingly volatile over time, yet it continues to function according to the main principles which have held it together - under an orientation towards punishment, dehumanization, marginalization, exile, and authoritarian control.
Over the centuries since its establishment, there has been no guiding theory to add structure according to principles to shape it as an integrated system based on higher-order socially-integrated values.
As such, it is becoming an increasingly rogue and isolated system, which functions to isolate the exact members of society who are actually in extra need of a higher-order organizing principle to bring added balance and re-harmonizing to the portion of the system most inclined to fall out of integrity with the good of the whole body of the community.
Continuing with the example that a room left to the Force of Entropy becomes messier, consider the wisdom of an organizational specialist adding a mail holder to a space in a home where people tend to set down mail. A small addition of intentional structure can keep the whole home in better operational status, given that the content in the mail is integral to the functioning of the home.
Likewise, adding new intentional structure to the Justice system can help bring more order to society. Some might argue that there is an intentional structure - that of isolating people who violate the law in order to keep those who uphold the law safe. However, this reasoning falls apart when you take into consideration three key facts:
1) One third of the U.S. population has a criminal record, with almost 8% having a felony record. This is such a large percentage of the population, it calls society into self-examination rather than meriting the exile of a large portion.
2) Half of the children in the U.S. have a parent with a criminal record, underscoring the need to bring supportive structure to families involved in the legal system for the benefit of our future generations.
3) The United States has 5% of the world population, but 20% of incarcerated population. That means this nation is already exiling far more people than other cultures, pointing to an out-of-balance society in terms of dealing with factors which lead to involvement with the legal system. Other statistics, such as highest rates of drug overdose, highest rates of suicide amongst wealthy countries, and high rates of homelessness even compared to more impoverished countries. And 25% of Americans did not have enough money to buy food at some time in 2023.
Together, all of these factors suggest societal breakdown related to economic inequities is an important aspect of cultural importance for any approach to studying the causes and consequences of legal troubles of the citizens of the United States.
3) The United States has 5% of the world population, but 20% of incarcerated population. That means this nation is already exiling far more people than other cultures, pointing to an out-of-balance society in terms of dealing with factors which lead to involvement with the legal system. Other statistics, such as highest rates of drug overdose, highest rates of suicide amongst wealthy countries, and high rates of homelessness even compared to more impoverished countries. And 25% of Americans did not have enough money to buy food at some time in 2023.
Together, all of these factors suggest societal breakdown related to economic inequities is an important aspect of cultural importance for any approach to studying the causes and consequences of legal troubles of the citizens of the United States.
Bringing New Syntropy to Justice
Entropy refers to the natural tendency for systems to degrade as they tend towards chaos. In high states of entropy, crises are experienced, particularly in the form of death in biological systems. The current dysfunction of the U.S. Justice system stems from historic roots of out-of-balance conditions of our society, and feeds forward ongoing extreme suffering as it furthers out-of-balance conditions with each passing generation affected.
A new force is needed to turn this destruction around - rehabilitative Syntropy
The “counterforce” is syntropy, representing the tendency of life-sustaining systems to to evolve in complexity as they increase in order and organization. As syntropy is increased, crises decline and wellbeing is heightened.
In order to understand how to bring greater life-affirming syntropy as an antidote to the current destructiveness of the U.S. Justice system, we must determine what kind of organizing principles we wish to establish in order to plant seeds for a new system to emerge with the desired fruits.
The Backbone of Justice Project advocates for holistic, integrative, restorative, rehabilitation principles to guide a new creation. The dream is for these principles to become an organizing orientation to replace the outdated punitive modes which research shows are not working. Rehabilitative strategies are empirically supported. Yet, more complex conceptualizations for how to address societal justice issues are needed which take into account economically contextualized, trauma-informed, culturally-influenced bases of social behavior.
Ultimately, we follow the wisdom of system theorist Buckminster Fuller:
“you never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
“you never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
The bright side of how desolate the current picture has gotten is that most people in positions of examining the Justice System agree that it is tremendously broken. Perhaps we can almost consider it a dead model, not even to be resurrected, rather completely conceived anew.
However, until there is a considerable mass of society willing to join together in such a new creation for what Justice looks like and how it operates, perhaps reforming the old system is the most realistic. So, this is where the Reform Agenda of the Backbone for Justice Project will focus for now.
However, until there is a considerable mass of society willing to join together in such a new creation for what Justice looks like and how it operates, perhaps reforming the old system is the most realistic. So, this is where the Reform Agenda of the Backbone for Justice Project will focus for now.
We do note here that we set our sights on higher aspirations!
As Evolutionary Leaders come on board and other aspects of societal evolutionary progress are set into motion, via thought leaders and change agents converging on various projects and aspects of social design, we anticipate partnership, collaboration, and strategic implementation to be able to break the mould. Entirely new modes of Justice can become possible for future generations. Creating advisory circles according to this Reform Agenda presented here just may prove to be a pathway of increasing awareness and involving future visionaries so that much greater change can become actualized.
Please consider supporting these efforts to help us make certain that the
current punitive orientation of the probation system becomes a thing of the past,
paving an emerging future for rehabilitative, regenerative, restorative modes of justice.
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