Hannah Sorila is a writer and community organizer who aims to align intention and impact in community safety and public policy. She is a Representative Town Meeting member from District 8.
BRATTLEBORO-When I was a first-year college student, I read a speech by Ivan Illich called "To Hell with Good Intentions." It fundamentally changed my life.
In it, Illich critiques the hypocrisy (likely unconscious in many of the students being addressed) of engaging in critical analysis of the power dynamics and harm of volunteering abroad while simultaneously choosing to volunteer in Mexico despite that analysis.
Illich says, "You close your eyes because you want to go ahead and could not do so if you looked at some facts."
Even when we know we can and should do better, it is easy to turn away by choosing the thing we want or the thing we think is needed - even when evidence shows otherwise.
Illich continues on to say, "I wanted to make this statement in order to [...] make you aware that good intentions have not much to do with what we are discussing here. To hell with good intentions [...]. You will not help anybody by your good intentions."
The first time I read this, it felt like a personal attack. I became defensive. I dug my heels into my good intentions, and claimed, "I am just trying to help."
And then, after many days of individual reflection and group discussions, it clicked - regardless of my intentions, I am responsible for the impact of my actions.
And when I cause harm, I am responsible for creating repair. And once I know better, I am responsible for doing better.
My intentions do matter, but they do not matter more than my impact.
* * *
Over the course of the past several months - and by extension, years - I have witnessed and participated in many conversations about community safety in Brattleboro. What I have noticed is this: People feel unsafe, people are actively - often visibly - suffering, and everyone wants change.
With good intentions, town staff and the Selectboard (the Town) have urgently adopted plans intended to increase community safety in response to the many loud, often angry, voices telling them, "Do something now!"
Through this effort, the Acceptable Community Conduct Ordinance was written and approved, a plan for a substation at the Transportation Center was developed, and an expansion of the police department determined an emergency (despite not yet having the full budgeted police force on staff).
With good intention, the Town continues to prioritize community safety through punitive and carceral responses that contradict the recommendations of the Town-sponsored Community Safety Review (2020) and more recent feedback from local human service organizations - including Interaction and Groundworks - that the impact of these plans do not and will not align with the intentions of a safer community.
The unintended impact? Criminalizing poverty and suffering.
As Vera, a national organization fighting to end mass incarceration, has explained, "Poverty is criminalized when state and local policy choices trap people in the criminal legal system for engaging in activities to survive, such as driving without a license, being forced to sleep outside, or being unable to pay outstanding fines and fees."
* * *
Ivan Illich goes on to tell the students, "All you will do in a Mexican village is create disorder. At best, you can try to convince Mexican girls that they should marry a young man who is self-made, rich [...]. At worst, in your 'community development' spirit you might create just enough problems to get someone shot after your vacation ends and you rush back to your middle class neighborhoods."
And to us all, I say, these punitive and carceral plans will create disorder.
At best, we will have more police surveilling downtown and telling people, "You can't do that here," while directing them to waitlists for services they need but are not available due to limited funding and capacity.
At worst, in our "community safety" spirit, we might create just enough problems to get someone thrown onto the ground by the police, arrested, or killed due to the lack of access to necessary services as we rush back to our middle class neighborhoods.
* * *
The intentions of the town matter. It is clear that they intend to create a safer Brattleboro.
However, as Illich wrote, "I am here to challenge you to recognize your inability, your powerlessness, and your incapacity to do the 'good' which you intended to do."
These plans will cause harm for our entire community - be it substantial tax increases or increased punitive violence.
"If you insist on [policing] the poor, if this is your vocation, then at least work among the poor who can tell you to go to hell," Illich said. "It is incredibly unfair for you to impose yourselves on a [community] where you are so [out of touch] that you don't even understand what you are doing, or what people think of you."
It is a natural response to feel defensive of our good intentions. And, it is easy to close our eyes because we want to go ahead with the intention of increasing safety and could not do so if we looked at feedback and guidance from our homeless community and local practitioners.
Now is our invitation to do better by being willing to be changed by new information, prioritizing the needs and experiences of the homeless, the poor, the addicted, the suffering, by listening to the local organizations who are already doing this work on limited budgets and staff capacity, by nurturing the collaboration within One Brattleboro, and by making a safer Brattleboro not with our good intentions, but through our desired impact.
This Voices Viewpoint was submitted to The Commons.
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