All my life, the only thing I ever dreamed of becoming was an FBI agent. I used to watch Law and Order and think "One day, that is going to be me. I am going to solve every high-profile case I receive." Looking back at those previous thoughts, I cannot imagine my life any differently than it is now.
The hard criminals that I used to want to put away, I now just want to help.
I have had a very distorted view of this topic for most of my young life. I always believed, mostly because of my father, that if you commit a crime you are an evil person. He contests that if someone rapes a girl or kills someone, that he or she should be put to death. Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion, no matter how grotesque it may be. However, I certainly do wish I could change his opinion of convicted offenders. I have tried to no avail.
I started taking criminal justice classes my sophomore year at Temple University in the fall of 2013. I came into the major thinking I already knew everything; I thought I knew how to find the bad people and capture them.
I have never been so wrong.
My whole thought process did a complete 180 when I started becoming aware of the current state of the criminal justice system. The biggest issue is the lack of rehabilitation. If we fail to give these criminals guidance, they will continue down a destructive path. I never even gave these criminals a chance; I just deemed them bad people because that is what I had always been brought up to believe. I never had taken the time to sit down and think about the reasons why someone would even commit a crime in the first place, no matter what that crime may be.
I was raised well, in a middle class family with very loving parents. For that alone, I will be eternally grateful, especially considering what I have recently learned: that so many people out there are less fortunate than I. And to think I used to complain when I didn't get to go to the mall with my friends. How cruel that sounds to me now.
Going to school in Philadelphia, I have experienced first-hand the poverty that exists in the world. I was very recently hired as an Undergraduate Research Assistant with the Philadelphia Family Court. This opportunity has already been quite the blessing in my life. It has opened my eyes to new doors I never thought existed. I can now see how bad a person's life can be. Every single day that I walk into court, I see a child that gets referred to foster care because his or her parent no longer wants him or her. That amount of neglect in itself is enough to cause someone serious psychological damage. This damage can contribute to the way a person thinks, acts, and, most importantly, feels. Because I had never opened my mind to other possibilities, I never thought that a broken family would contribute to why someone would commit a crime.
Going to school in Philadelphia has also made me realize something else: sometimes there is no escape. I used to see so-called low-life people on the street selling drugs and think to myself "They must have nothing better to do with their lives." But what if it isn't their fault? What if they sell drugs to support their family, or to feed their children who depend on them? These are the questions I ponder every day.
It is my new way of thinking that has transformed my life for the better. I used to walk around campus with preconceived notions about almost everyone that I saw. But because of the education I have been receiving, and the eye-opening job I was able to obtain, I understand now that everyone has their own story of where they are and what brought them there. I am so fortunate to be where I am today, and I could not be any more grateful for that every moment that I continue to breathe.
I urge everyone reading this to take a second to stop next time before they want to judge someone. You can never know what someone is going through or has been through just by looking at them. Don't be afraid to change your views about the way you think about offenders who have committed violent acts. Maybe they are an evil person. But maybe – just maybe – unfortunate circumstances have led them to where they are today.
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