This book has once again become a bestseller in the light of recent events in the United States, the ongoing protests for the killing of George Floyd. Following a heavy recommendation from my colleagues, I decided to read this book and educate myself on the background and root of these protests. Once I researched about the book and it's author Bryan Stevenson, I remembered his TED talk many years ago. I was inspired a little that time, but going back now and listening to him all over again made more sense than ever.
Bryan Stevenson runs the Equal Justice Initiative in the US, a non-profit organisation that helps in exonerating wrongly convicted people on death rows, defends juveniles who received death sentences or life sentences without parole among many other initiatives. This book is based on his personal experiences with some stories of his clients. The movie 'Just Mercy' came out last year, it was based on the story of Bryan's client Walter McMillan, an innocent man who was sentenced to death row for the murder he didn't commit. Jamie Fox played McMillan (I hope his brilliant performance gets him an oscar!!) with Michael B Jordon who played the lead in the movie.
Although the book is very specific to the justice system in America and talks about injustice that is prevalent in death penalties and mass incarceration due to racism, biases, poverty and discrimination, the need for compassion and respect for human dignity applies universally. The most horrible stories were that of kids, under 14 years old prosecuted as adults and convicted to die in prison, subjected to sexual abuse, violence, psychological trauma and mental disorders.
It is alarming to know how the wrong conviction and unfair sentences disproportionally affect people of colour, poverty and their families and communities yet the justice system fails to acknowledge the inherent errors and biases in the system, fails to respect basic human rights and dignity of the incarcerated and condemned. Bryan calls out the absence of mercy when deciding that a person is unfit to live in a society and mercilessly take their life or condemn them to live inside the prison's four walls for the rest of their lives.
When it comes to justice, we want our laws and systems to be strict as much as possible but we seldom pay attention to the fairness of it's execution. For a society to function peacefully, we argue that criminals should be punished severely. But in reality, when our society is full of biases and discrimination, the inequality in these systems leads to more suffering than progress.
A quote from Bryan Stevenson has been stuck with me for quite sometime now, "Our visions of technology and design and entertainment and creativity have to be married with visions of humanity, compassion and justice". What is so great about the progress of humanity when we can't share with everyone?
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