Racial Stress and Trauma: Listening to Justice Impacted Citizens
Those directly impacted by our criminal justice system suffer lasting and complex trauma. Violence, isolation, and everyday life as one of society’s targets of fear and aggression mean that survivors take on central nervous systems geared toward fight, flight, and freeze. Repeated betrayals and lack of accountability from well-intentioned authority figures make trust next to impossible. From a broader view, all of us are implicated in our society's facts and fantasies about what a criminal is and what punishment should look like.
Seraphim Wing consultants, Aron Pines and Lydia York, spoke with criminal justice advocates and service professionals to find out what they can teach us about the trauma of living within injustice. Those of us who feel un-impacted by systemic injustice and racial caste my also suffer bouts of hypo/hyperarousal, cognitive dysfunction, and primitive ego impingements when confronted by facts too difficult for our psyche to absorb and accept. Becoming available for both listening and hearing means committing to a deeper self-reflection.
Attendees will be able to:
- Describe an advocacy perspective about trauma and criminal justice
- Identify the service needs of justice-impacted persons
- Understand the history of racial caste in the psychiatric clinic
