One end leads to another beginning

Hello There My Lovelies,

So my internship at the Public Defender's Office is officially over. I need to hand in my badge, and in return receive my Certificate of Completion for the internship program. My bosses were awesome, and I learned a lot. Especially about the mentality of criminals. One thing I learned is that you can offer all the rehabilitation programs you want, and try and add incentives for ex cons to be good. No matter what you do, and no matter how much you try to help them, most will reoffend. It's a mindset. Those people have to want to change their life, and be committed to it. Most aren't and just blame their problems on the system. I honestly went into the program thinking it would make me more liberal. It made me a lot more conservative.

Don't get me wrong. I don't mind helping people that are serious about changing. There were a few clients of ours that were sorry for the crimes they committed, paid their restitution, and were actively pursuing their education and being better role models for their children. But most aren't like that. It drains you when you put out a lot of effort to help people, that eventually just end up causing more problems in society.

I was watching Locked Up on NBC, a show about prison life. A lot of the men were complaining about a lack of programs. A lot of blame on the government for cutting rehabilitation programs. Basically blaming the system for when they reoffended. No one stuck a gun to their head and forced them to molest another person, or violate their parole. There are programs in prisons for convicts to get an education or learn another trade here in California, like San Quentin. There is medical care for these people, there is food, even though I hear both suck, but at least it's there. But where is the free college education for young people who are raised poor that haven't committed crimes ? Where is the free medical care or free medications for people in need that have never broken the law ? I would rather focus my energy on those people than the people that have already hurt others and will probably end up hurting more people.

A couple of years ago I really realized that life is not fair. It never was, is, nor will it ever be. My dad told me that over and over, but I guess you don't really understand until you've become an adult. Someone is always going to get the raw end of the deal in life. We all have. With the ways the laws are set up, you can blame your family all you want for your behaviour until you're 18-21 years old. But at some point after becoming an adult you have to take responsibility for your actions and your life. At some point, you have to take responsibility for yourself. And many people I dealt with in my internship kept getting into trouble because they didn't take responsibility for themselves. Yeah, their lives were hard, they didn't have role models. But that doesn't make it okay for them to steal from or harm others. That is not the message we should send to society.

On another note.................

My former professor finally e-mailed me about my new volunteer project and we will resume again next week. I've been waiting to hear from him, thinking that the program got the axe. But it hasn't so I am happy that I we meet next week. This time I will be learning more about Family Law.

Anyway, that is enough for now.