Compassionate Consequences?

I found out today that my brother lost his job Thursday for writing a threatening letter to a coworker. He was fired. For those of you who don’t know, my older brother has Downs Syndrome. As my Dad says, he’s great 95% of the time, but that other 5% gets him in trouble.

This has happened a few times before. It took him over a year to find another job after the last time—when he blew up for being unjustly accused of stealing money [who wouldn’t? But well, hitting still isn’t ok]. This time? My parents already felt like this was his last chance at working in a non-sheltered environment.

On the dark side, what if they had called the police? What if he really hurts someone? These things have happened (though not real serious stuff, though that potential is there). And my brother’s not in jail in part because my parents have a helluva lot of privilege & social capital—they know the local judge, they know lots of movers & shakers, they have access to good legal defense, etc. If my brother committed a serious crime, would my parents be able to get him off the hook? What would it mean, what would it feel like for my brother to be in prison? My heart goes out to the thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of developmentally & psychologically disabled folks in prison, and, well, all prisoners. I am both relieved at the cushion that my family’s privilege provides, and horrified at what must happen in the many cases where that cushion doesn’t exist, or gets punctured.

Which leads me to the question of consequences. Was it right that he was fired? What are appropriate compassionate consequences for aggregious behavior? I think we need more compassion about different people’s situations, and need to find ways to tailor consequences to them. In this case, my brother had a crush on a co-worker (he’s big on the crushes, in the teenage mentality sense), he invited her to an event, she said no, and he wrote the note. Bad. Awful. But did he mean the threat in the note? No. I’m certain of it.

In the world I want to live in, people are supported when bad things happen—both the “perpetrators” and “victims”. And the perpetrators are held responsible in ways that do not flip their life topsy turvy, because that’s never going to prevent further incidents. In my brother’s case, getting fired from a job that took over a year to find is turning his life topsy turvy, especially given the lack of job sites willing to even consider hiring him. In other cases, putting anyone in jail turns their lives topsy turvy, isolating them from family, friends, and work...until they’re thrown back out on the street without any support down the road.

I’m not sure what consequences we should have, but I know that the ones I see don’t make any sense. And it makes no sense for my brother to choose between working in a segregated, sheltered worksite that has space for mistakes, or an integrated “real” job where a mistake means firing or worse.