Farewell to year of pain pursuing public, personal justice

There's no other way to say it: 2021 was hellacious for just about all of us. There are plenty of reasons to look back on the past 12 months and wince in pain.

COVID is still with us, and disproportionately hurting communities that don't have the luxury of working from home. We know that burden doesn't fall equally on everyone and that makes it hard to believe "we're all in this together."

Both in Minnesota and nationally, there was little progress made on a progressive agenda, from a fairer tax system, to public health, to an education system that genuinely reckons with racial opportunity gaps and discipline disparities.

Here in the Twin Cities, a broad-based outcry for a complete re-envisioning of the public safety framework was met by elected officials funneling more money to policing as usual, like always, despite their proven inability to reduce harm. Meanwhile, the predominant attitude of policing serving as an occupying force in BIPOC communities — as when a former Brooklyn Center Police Department veteran and training officer shot and killed Daunte Wright, continues with no end in sight.

On the surface, this year was a rough one for me personally as well. It's been 15 years since I was convicted of possession of cocaine, the last in a string of drug-related crimes as I struggled to free myself from a life of gang-related mistakes. I was in and out of trouble throughout my youth. That last conviction removed many toxic people from my life while opening new doors of hope and community accountability.

In the years since my offense, I graduated from college, earned a master's degree and began working toward my Ph.D. I have worked as a college professor for a dozen years, most recently at Hamline University, where I teach courses on the criminal punishment system. I've served as a board member for numerous nonprofit organizations like Voices for Racial Justice, served as president of the Minneapolis NAACP, and empowered survivors and formerly incarcerated people across the world.

I hoped this clear turnaround of my life merited a pardon, a clearing of my criminal record, a fresh start acknowledging progress I'd made. Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Lorie Gildea disagreed.

When my case went before the Minnesota Board of Pardons on Nov. 21, both Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison recognized my accomplishments and voted to approve the waiver for pardon eligibility. Gildea, a conservative justice first appointed by Gov. Tim Pawlenty, cast the lone vote against me on a board whose decisions to pardon must be unanimous.

To reject my plea for a pardon, Gildea had to look past positive testimony from dozens of supporters, including the president of Hamline, the president of the Bush Foundation, where I had served as a fellow, and a neighbor of Justine Damond who remembered how I showed up for their neighborhood after Damond was killed by Minneapolis police.

The decision stung me, and it shocked many of the people who had followed my long journey toward redemption. I thanked them for their thoughts, while reminding them that many other people fighting through the same system don't have as many people rooting for them. And many of them are fighting from behind a wall and barbed wire. All of them are worthy of our compassion and encouragement.

Fact is, the deck is stacked against people in situations like mine, or like Philip Vance, serving a life sentence for a murder he didn't commit. More than half of all pardons like the one I sought are rejected by the board, dating back to 1992.

Mistakes made in our youth, decisions made under pressure, and when our brains are still developing, haunt us for decades if not our entire lives. And the government keeps throwing money at the exact wrong solution: cops, who continue to oppress BIPOC communities. It's frustrating to watch.

So why am I so optimistic?

Because I can feel a groundswell of momentum toward abolition of the criminal justice system as we know it. More people than ever are reading, discussing and sharing community-led approaches to actually reducing crime without subjecting us to police, prisons and parole. The movement toward changing our society to one that cares for people rather than criminalizing them has never been stronger.

That's why I'm committed to several abolitionist frameworks that will empower the next generation of organizers with language and tools to change the way we look after one another. Instead of locking people in cages, let's explore community-led safety initiatives and transformative practices that uplift survivors while treating people who have made mistakes like human beings.

And it's not just progressive activists and academics having these conversations. Many of us were disappointed with the failure to pass a ballot question that would begin replacing the Minneapolis Police Department with a new department of public safety. Even so, more than 43% of Minneapolis voters supported that campaign.

Going back even just five years, could you imagine that many people saying we'd be better off without cops as we know them?

There are more people than ever acknowledging we need to move beyond the same old methods with the same old results. That's the energy I'm bringing into 2022. Bitterness and hate won't win this battle. Love, outside the box approaches, and genuine accountability will.

I'll be back up for a pardon in 2026, and will continue to fight to clear my record and those of so many others subject to the brutal elements of American criminal justice. When will the system that put us here be subject to the same scrutiny?

That moment can't come soon enough, but the struggle continues. Join us.

Jason Sole is a professor of criminal justice at Hamline University and a board member of Voices for Racial Justice.