Legislation would help compensate crime victims
Three years ago, my son Rodney was shot. As I lay over his body to protect him from further harm, I made eye contact with the young man who took his life. The fleeting look of remorse in this young man’s eyes stayed with me as my family navigated the painful path through the criminal proceedings. For a year, it felt as though I had no voice in the legal process. In the end, when faced with a sentencing agreement over which we had no say, I asked for the opportunity to provide mentoring to the young man who took my son’s life.
I believed that if we could use his life to save others, my son’s death would not be in vain. He received a prison sentence, and the district attorney accepted my request. This became my introduction to the concept of restorative justice, which focuses on accountability more than punishment, aiming to move the person who caused the harm to take responsibility and to repair the harm they caused when possible.
Red tape gets in the way of aiding crime victims
We know that most individuals who go to prison will get out. If they are warehoused for decades and released with no support, the results are predictable for them and for us. Our current system’s focus on excessive punishment is not an effective response to the violence we all want to prevent.
I also know firsthand that the Tennessee Criminal Compensation Fund,
which is supposed to help victims and their families partially cover funeral expenses and trauma counseling, has too much red tape and makes funds nearly impossible to access.
Many mothers, just like me, whose children’s lives have been violently taken, are denied compensation. Others are too intimidated by the process to apply while others don’t even know that support is available. In fact, Tennessee’s fund denies 60% of requests for
assistance from these very victims, ranking among the top five worst states for denials.
The exorbitant amount of money our state invests in pursuing the harshest punishment, the death penalty, for people who are already incarcerated would be better spent providing more support to victims and their families and solving the hundreds of cold cases that remain unsolved, leaving families with no answers and no accountability.
Legislation will help start healing
I am excited about recent legislation (HB1021 / SB1416) that has been introduced to make it easier for Tennesseans impacted by violent crime to access the support that they need to begin to heal, reducing the likelihood that their unhealed trauma will result in harm to someone else. This is a great step forward.
But we can’t stop there.
We must also support efforts to stem gun violence and resist “quick fixes” that promote tired “tough on crime” policies that we have relied on for years, policies that cost us millions without making us safer. The voices of victims of everyday violence must be uplifted to take back our narrative that is used to support tough on crime policies.
We already know what causes violence and how to prevent it. Trauma, previous exposure to violence, and concentrated poverty all create the conditions that lead to violence, and the science behind these causes show us the way forward. Across the nation, communities are implementing new strategies grounded in public health that include community-based street outreach, violence interrupters, and hospital-based violence intervention.
We all want to be safe and not to live in fear. For too many communities this is not the reality. But it could be.
Rafiah Muhammad-mccormick’s son Rodney was a victim of homicide in 2020. She also serves as coordinator of community outreach for Tennesseans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (TADP), an organization that works to end the death penalty, prevent violence, and support those who experience harm.