I think that I find a lot of my healing out in the world.
Some of us are born with a weakness for music. As a baby, music would stop whatever thought I was having. If I was worried, it would stop me worrying; if I was crying, it would stop me crying. Music was a healing thing for me.
As any doctor can tell you, the most crucial step toward healing is having the right diagnosis. If the disease is precisely identified, a good resolution is far more likely. Conversely, a bad diagnosis usually means a bad outcome, no matter how skilled the physician.
We've been addicted to incarceration as a primary response for decades, whether or not it's a good use of resources, whether or not it's humane, whether or not it is effective at keeping us safe, rehabilitating or healing victims.
Different victims, different survivors of different crimes will choose to pursue different paths. And hopefully, over time, we can collectively transform our culture into one that prioritizes healing and prevention instead of simply focusing on punishment.
Years now, decades, of visiting my parents behind bars taught me hard lessons about how broken the criminal justice system is - about how devoid of compassion it is. It's not healing the harm that victims experience. It's not rehabilitating people. And in many ways, it's making us less safe.
I've been really consistent throughout the campaign and since I won that I want to prioritize victims rights and I want to prioritize healing.
One of my priorities is giving victims the right to choose different paths to restoration and to healing. It's prioritizing having restitution available for economic harm, having victim services for the trauma and also recognizing that victims are far more than simply pieces of evidence to be used in order to secure a lengthy prison sentence.
There's something about losing friends, particularly young people, where it's not something that you get over. I don't believe there's a healing process.
In my 20s, I got into giving people massages and realised I was able to encourage their bodies to heal by passing my hands over them. I'd never describe myself as a faith healer - it's just that if someone believes in this type of healing, I can help release whatever blockage it is that's preventing them healing themselves.
