This inventive piece was written by Joan Ruzsa, a regular contributer to AVRUM’S BLOG. Joan is the director of Ritttenhouse non-profit. She councils (hardened) prisoners, and helps inviduals who are out of jail, with a better new life. In this article Joan talks about how poisonous violence is in her eyes. She gives us a glimpse of what beauty looks  like when it turns ugly. I have not been exposed to a lot of violence, and am so intensely disappointed at the level of it in our world. Have you seen much/any violence. What was  your physical and mental response? This article is part of the Dead man Walking series. Check i t out. _______________________________________________________________________

 On Monday I witnessed a fight at my workplace.  The agency I work for provides support and advocacy to prisoners and ex-prisoners living with HIV. 

On Monday afternoons we run a drop-in, where the people we work with can come for a hot meal, tokens, harm reduction tools and a place to socialize.  One of our clients (let’s call her Miss A) had been temporarily suspended from coming into the office after being aggressive with her worker, and she had come to the front door to see if she could get food and TTC tokens brought out to her on the porch.

 I went to speak to her worker, and when I came back she was gone.  As I stepped out into the foyer to look for her, I heard yelling.   I could see out to the porch through the glass in the front doors.  Miss A was being screamed at by Miss B, another client.  On a normal day, Miss B is one of the most stunning women you could ever meet, with a beautiful smile. 

Not today.  

She was shouting profanities and threatening to kill Miss A.  Her lips were pulled back in a snarl, and her teeth were red with blood.   She was swinging her handbag at her side, almost like a lasso, and then would launch it overhand at Miss A, hitting her repeatedly in the head until blood started running down the left side of her face.  

 The violence was brutal, but even more disturbing was the look of pure hatred and rage on Miss B’s face.  It was like the person I knew had been replaced by a dead-eyed stranger.

I knew that I should try to stop it, but I felt paralyzed, unable to do anything but stand and watch in horror.  I don’t know how long I stood there before a male co-worker came out, broke up the fight and pushed me back into the office. 

As soon as I sat down I became aware of my body:  I was nauseous, shaky, my heart was racing and I could feel tears welling up.  Then someone told me that I needed to call an ambulance, and I felt suddenly calm.  I called 911, thought of what I would say to the police when they inevitably arrived with the paramedics, found a clean t-shirt for Miss A to hold against her forehead and generally got back to business as usual. 

One of my co-workers told me that I was finally toughening up and I smiled, but I knew that really my mind had simply decided to shut down until I was in a safe environment to process what had happened.

I have always been afraid of violence, and of the emotions that tend to precipitate it.  As a kid, I was taught not to express negative feelings, and because I was a girl, that societal message was coupled with the idea that I was supposed be nurturing and kind and warm all of the time, no matter how I felt inside. 

I grew up believing that anger in particular was unseemly and inappropriate and somehow chaotic, and that I should learn to suppress it whenever possible.  I still struggle with this now, despite having come to understand that being able to express anger in a healthy way is important and necessary, and that pushing feelings down doesn’t make them go away.  I still tend to apologize for getting angry, and I am apprehensive around people who I see as being emotionally volatile. 

When I was in Grade 7, I got into a stupid fight at recess with a boy in my class.  He was trying to steal my boot, and in the ensuing melee I ended up accidentally cutting him underneath his eye.  There was a lot of blood, and he had to be taken to the hospital in an ambulance. 

A rumour started that I might have blinded him in one eye; I felt that if this were true I would never be able to forgive myself. 

Waiting for news was unbearable, and even when I discovered he just needed a couple of stitches, I had already internalized the idea of how quickly and easily violence can spiral out of control.  I could have irrevocably altered the course of his life, and mine, in one second of carelessness. 

I was lucky. 

Many of the people I work with have been less fortunate.  It is shocking to me how often people end up incarcerated for aggravated assault or manslaughter because of a bar fight or street brawl that got out of hand. 

One wild punch after one too many drinks, and somebody’s seriously injured or dead. 

 This can happen more easily than most of us can imagine.  My fears of getting into a physical fight are less about me getting hurt, than they are about hurting another person.  What if I got into a situation where the anger I’ve spent most of my life repressing started to come out, and I couldn’t stop it?  How would I live with myself? 

In the book of Genesis, Jacob is about to meet his brother Esau for the first time in 20 years.  He is worried that Esau will take revenge for Jacob having robbed him of his father’s blessing many years before. 

“The messengers returned to Jacob and said, “We came to your brother Esau. He is also approaching you. He has 400 people with him.” Jacob feared greatly and was distressed. (Genesis 32:6-7)” 

In Rashi’s commentary he says that Jacob was afraid that he might be killed and distressed that he might kill Esau.  According to this interpretation, Jacob could not bear the thought of killing his brother, even in self-defense. 

For some people, violence is sport or just a part of everyday life.  For others, it’s a means of creating social change.  For too many, it’s a necessary tool for survival.  For me, it feels like danger and chaos and loss of control.  What does violence mean to you?

Welcome to the ‘Dead Man Walking’ Series of Articles written by Joan Ruzsa, AVRUM’S BLOG’s most popular guest author to date. This article is highly revealling and intimate. In it Joan compels us to question our beliefs about individuals in society who we call ‘monsters’ and how we respond to them.

Many people would drag a rapist and mass murder out to the courtyard and mangle them,justifying it by saying ‘we’ve protected the world’. Joan argues however, that these ‘monsters’ can be rehabilitated; can make better lives for themselves and others.

Stay tuned for this fascinating series and learn about some of the beautiful and giving activities of men and women in jail, on behalf of their victims and others in need. If Joan pisses you off, let us know.

If she reminds you of something you once read or saw of a similar nature – tell us. This blog was created for wondrous ideas! Welcome to all…even the ‘monsters’.
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Sometimes change creeps up on you. Sometimes it’s so subtle that you don’t even notice the shift until afterwards. Sometimes it’s about making a conscious choice to alter your existence.

In my case, change walked up and punched me in the face in the form of a movie called “Dead Man Walking.”

The movie is based on the true story of a nun, Sister Helen Prejean, who became the spiritual advisor to a death-row prisoner name Matthew Poncelet. Poncelet had been convicted, along with another man, of the brutal murders of of a teenaged couple, Walter Delacroix and Hope Percy. When Prejean began visiting him, he was totally unremorseful about the crimes, and in fact claimed to have only been a witness to the murders, not a participant.

He was also a virulent racist, who spewed his hateful views at anyone who would listen. Despite these things, Prejean visited him regularly, and worked on an appeal to have Poncelet’s death sentence commuted to life.

Why would she do this?

Because she believed that everyone is a child of God, no matter what they have done, and where others saw only a monster, she saw his inherent humanity. Also, because she saw all life as having value, she was opposed to the death penalty, a punishment which is exactly the same as the crime it condemns.

This movie really spun my head around, mostly because it asked me to look at and and question many of my previously-held assumptions: about crime, about personal responsibility, about morality and human nature and compassion.

I couldn’t understand why someone would choose to spend time with a murderer.

My opinions about violent crime had all been informed by the media, in particular newspapers and TV shows like “Law and Order.” From these questionable sources, I had learned that people who commit serious crimes are different from “regular” people, that they are calculating, remorseless psychopaths who will kill you as soon as look at you.

Based on the kind of language that is used when talking about crime, I also internalized the idea that people are defined by their bad behaviour. Papers don’t say someone commits a murder, they call that person a “murderer”. Someone who commits a crime is a “criminal.”

This may sound like a semantic distinction, but it’s much more than that. These kind of labels take away depth and complexity, and they ignore the fact that whatever action a person is being condemned for is only one part of a whole life. I started thinking about trying to  eparate people from their actions, much like the concept of “Hate the sin.  Love the sinner.”

I wouldn’t want my whole existence to be defined by my worst action. Would you?

Critics of the prisoners’ rights movement often say that it doesn’t hold people to account for their actions, but Poncelet’s relationship with Prejean forced him to take personal responsibility in a way that just sitting alone in a cell never could. Prejean constantly challenged Poncelet on his bigoted views, and never stopped pushing him to admit his role in the murders.

Even though she vocally disagreed with and even despised many of his views, she still stuck with him, providing him with support and spiritual guidance up until the day of his death. Finally, on the morning of his execution, he admitted to killing the two teenagers, and he wept for the pain he had caused so many people.

As he stood in the lethal injection room, he used his last words to apologize to the parents of the victims, as they sat on the other side of a glass wall, waiting to witness his death. Many would say his remorse was too little too late, but to me, it was an incredibly moving example of the transformative power of love.

Sister Helen attempted to provide spiritual counsel to the families of the victims as well, which obviously was very challenging. The parents of Hope were furious and horrified that Prejean could work with Poncelet, and still expect to be invited into their home

This makes perfect sense. The man had raped and killed their teenaged daughter. But to Sister Helen, there was no contradiction. She had a genuine desire to provide support and guidance to both sides. This was such an intriguing concept to me, the idea that the victims’ side and the offenders’ side didn’t necessarily have to be completely separated and in opposition to one another.

This idea of bringing victims and offenders together is one of the fundamental principles behind restorative justice practices like mediation and sentencing circles.

I think the scene that had the greatest impact on me is the one in which Poncelet is being led, shackled and cuffed, down the hall to his execution. As they’re waiting for a gate to open, Sister Helen approaches Matthew and says:

“I want the last thing you see in this world to be the face of love. So look at me, and I will be the face of love for you.” This statement, and the spirit behind it, is profoundly beautiful to me.

Seeing this movie inspired me to go back to school, and to get involved in changing the justice system. For the part 10 years, I have been working for Rittenhouse, an agency that advocates for alternatives to incarceration like mediation and sentencing circles.

These practices bring together the victim, the offender and the community to come up with solutions to crime that are healing for everyone involved, instead of just punitive.

The underlying belief is that even terrible situations can bring about peaceful resolutions, and that human beings have a great capacity to change themselves, and society, for the better.