Compassion.

A defendant voluntarily choosing one year in jail over three years of probation. “It’s a business decision,” says the judge privately later. The person is a known drug dealer with a rap sheet going back all the way to 1985; losing the market for a year would be preferable to losing it for three.

A 32-year-old felon asking for probation, with the public defender arguing that even though he had a lot of problems with the law, he might still be “salvageable”—given his age and where he grew up, he should statistically be causing much more trouble. The argument to not lock him up is supported by handwritten letters from the defendant‘s mother, siblings, and friends. I get a chance to read through all of them.

A defendant taking a guilty plea of a three–year sentence deferred by five years. One of the conditions of the plea is staying away from convinced felons. After a quick conference with the public defender, he motions for a small exception—as it happens, the defendant has five kids with five different men. All of them are felons. The judge notes that she is allowed to see them, but only in support of raising the kids.


It’s interesting how sitting next to a judge can make one feel the most judgmental person in the room. This was Thursday morning, in circuit court (which deals with more serious offenses than the district court), and even though I labeled them “defendant” and “felon” just above, I encountered people. People with difficult life stories, with few opportunities, with small mistakes snowballing into life-changing outcomes, with failures of imagination having consequences not easily undone.

Throughout these two weeks in Louisville, I am time and again inspired by how much compassion is on display in the criminal justice system. Jail officials were worried whether people showing up for court dates know how to use public transit. Judges talked about “frequent fliers” without a hint of resentment; rather just sadness of being unable to do anything to help them. (“We are where they live” was one judge’s quote that particularly resonated with me.) A correctional worker presented inmate volunteer programs with passion bordering on exuberance. The police officer quietly mentioned “we’ll be back, probably even tonight” as we were walking out on a domestic case of a troubled family. And another quote a few days before that—“We should be locking up people we’re afraid of, not the people we’re mad at”—from someone whose livelihood depends on… locking people up.

The empathy is never mawkish, because it can’t be—judge’s opinions are fair, but stark; the police orders stern; jail workers need to operate with a certain level of directness for everyone’s safety. The empathy is there, however, unmistakably so, and I want to understand it better. Even if people I mentioned at the beginning are criminal justice outliers (circuit court handles only a small percentage of more difficult cases), I know that even for everyone else, even for the most trivial of misdemeanors, it’ll still be hard for me to relate to the problems they face, and decisions they make.

I hope I do, though. If I want to help the criminal justice world with whatever my skills are—sometimes seemingly so remote—I will have to.

A few days back, one of the correctional facility officials shared with me a list of two dozen names of former inmates. No photos, no other identifiable information, no details of their cases. Just names. “It’s important to never forget of them as people,” he explained. Thinking of that, my plan for Monday morning is simply spending a few hours in the Hall of Justice, watching the crowds come in and out, and trying to understand them just a bit better.