The other night the police chief was on TV declaring war on the ‘thugs’, as he calls them, that are causing the increased violence in our city. An hour after his show of police force and tough talk there was another shooting in Milwaukee in the area he was covering with special police forces.

The other day I received a thank you note from the Casa Maria Catholic Worker community for a donation. The card was a drawing of Dorothy Day, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. However the unique part of this thank you was the envelope. Inside the envelope was the headline “Thugs”. Below was a picture of a prison and to the side was a poem “A Thugs Condominium” by Kwabena Antione Nixon. Here is the first verse:

Welcome!
We have been waiting on you…
We know you’d rather have ice on your wrists,
than these silver shackles.
We know you would rather be counting money,
than counting time.
We know that you would love to be anywhere but here,
But your reservation was made in third grade…
We have been patient, watching you rise up the ladder.
We are so glad to see you.

The poem goes on about the inevitability of so called ‘thug’ to be in prison. With the increase of violence by young adults in our society we restore to name calling and law enforcement rather than look at the causes. I cannot justify the violence of these senseless acts or excuse the person from responsibility. However, I believe that unless we look at the environment that produces such violence we are doomed to repeat the circumstances where senseless violence is so prominent. What about the high unemployment, the poor education, the hopelessness of the communities which these human beings live?

After 9/11 there was some talk about the environment that caused some great violence and hatred. However, soon the talk was just of vengeance, war and violence. In fact I have noticed in the last ten years the word ‘justice’ has become to mean vengeance, punishment, imprisonment and even death. When the USA killed Osama bin Laden the president and other leaders said “Justice has been served.”

If justice is vengeance than I guess a prison is a thug’s condominium.

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