Posted on 12/01/2019 12:04:11 PM PST by karpov
I remember a morning of unadulterated goodness. I’d come to celebrate graduation at a local men’s prison. The inmates had spent the semester studying criminal justice with students from the University of Cambridge as part of a program called Learning Together. The men from the prison dressed up for the occasion, hair slicked back and shirts tucked in.
Jack Merritt, my classmate at Cambridge and a program participant, recited a poem he’d written on forgiveness and rehabilitation. I remember feeling surprised by his words, so unselfconsciously earnest. I’d known him mostly for his dry wit, his boyishly good looks and his reputation as a criminology class clown.
Jack, who was 25 and from Cambridge, was stabbed to death during a terrorist attack near London Bridge on Friday. The attacker, Usman Khan, had been convicted of terrorism offenses in 2012. He was released from prison last year. Just before the attack, Jack was in Fishmongers’ Hall, a building adjacent to the bridge, helping to lead a conference on prisoner rehabilitation, an alumni celebration for Learning Together. Mr. Khan, who was attending the conference, began his rampage as a creative writing workshop was wrapping up inside the hall, around 2 p.m.
The injustice of somebody murdered while organizing for criminal justice feels impossibly sharp. Jack was in a room of people, some on day release from prison, discussing possibilities for penal reform.
But the world is full of injustice, and young people denied opportunity. Jack understood that better than most.
When I read the news of the attack, I pictured him back at Grendon prison reading his graduation poem. I remember how the students and inmates waved their diplomas in the air that day, pulling each other in for hugs and inside jokes. I remember how the prison auditorium felt blissfully full.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
No, it does not. And by the way, what does Marx have to do with it?
Oh the irony.
The two good Muslims better stand up now.
Just saying a chigger under the belt does not go unnoticed
In Britain, “Asians “ mean south Asian, and in the UK, nearly all the “Asians” in British jails are Paki and Bangladeshi Moslems. The Indian Hindus, Christians and Sikhs are practically non existent in prison, the only ones in there being for white collar crimes
I’m sure this bleeding heart was perfectly happy to see Tommy Robinson thrown in prison and mistreated. F him.
his idiot dad should throw it in his casket.
Callous, but at least one of the victims was the right victim.
I just wasted 5 minutes adding “schadenfreude” and some smart-aleck “Post Script” text the thesis description, and then decided “why rub it in.”
You have to wonder how many people in London will get the disgusting sad irony of his death, and how many will double down continuing to supplicate themselves to this evil
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