This was a difficult week to be a prison activist.  Just as it was undoubtedly difficult to work for the rights of immigrants and the mentally ill.  It was a week in Boston where four lives were lost and 170 wounded by a truly senseless act of violence committed by two young men bent on something we do not yet understand. And the last thing anyone wanted to discuss was how we need to make sure Dzhokhar Tsarnaev gets a fair trial and is not mistreated behind bars.

As I listened to the cheering on the night that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was caught, and all our officials expressing hopes and prayers for the 58 who, as of today, are still in the hospital, I thought of many moments from this week.  My students told me these stories: one went to the hospital to visit her ailing uncle in the Brigham and Women's ICU when those who had lost limbs were wheeled in; a student rushed from Lowell into Boston to try and find her father because she didn't know if he'd been hurt; and a Vietnam vet who had gone to see the Sox got lost on his way home because of the confusion. A friend's husband saw his company's restaurant's windows blown out, just across the street from the grandstand at the finish line; a friend's son who had been in New York and close to the tragedy of 9/11was about to get on the T in and instead turned around when he heard screams nearby.  It was a very unsettling experience to feel that our houses, our business, our institutions and our loved ones in the city we call home, could be unsafe.

And yet, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is 19.  He is the age of the students I teach.  He went to U Mass Dartmouth and wanted to go into the medical profession.  In fact, for whatever reason, he was seen at U Mass in his dorm, just 2 days after the horrific act he is accused of perpetrating with his brother. He had friends. He supposedly had a girlfriend.  He is, and I say it again, a student. I do not want him to be mistreated in prison; I do not want  him to get the death penalty, if he is tried in the federal courts.  I do not want any less for him than I want for any of the prisoners who commit heinous acts and live behind bars. For most of them, I want change, believe they are capable of transformation, and deserve options behind bars and in our system that give them a second chance.

Justice does not mean mercy.  That I know.  But justice must be tempered by mercy.  As we send out love to all the victims and their families, I hope we can remember the family of the Tsarnaevs.  I hope we can remember than everyone who enters our criminal justice system has a story.  Just like the doctors who labor to heal all who are hurt– no matter what the injured have done or who they are — we too, need to keep in our hearts that compassion cannot be piecemeal.   Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's acts were evil but can we really say that he is only the sum of this horrible crime?

A wonderful article in today's The Boston Globe about a young man from Roxbury who is finding himself through Shakespeare. 

Here, in a photo by The Globe, is Antonio Stroud who auditioned for the role of Othello in 2011, got the part and worked with the Actors’ Shakespeare Project in his high school, Boston Day and Evening Academy, to get to the point where he could say  ‘Yo! I love this!’ ” This year, he's on to Henry V.

In Shakespeare, Stroud said, he found an answer to the pressures young men like him face, and the power within himself to overcome them. According to his director, he understands the notion that "great men in difficult circumstances must chart their own courses. Macbeth chose evil. But Henry V, the young king of England, grew from his wayward youth to a king who led an invasion of France against impossible odds."

How many times have we heard this? "Stroud is a child of the projects in Roxbury, his mother on welfare, his father long gone."  These are the people who so many of us teach, those of us who love Shakespeare and realize his ability to draw the best out of those who feel helpless or useless or frightened or angry– those who struggle to overcome obstacles like Rose did, the woman I cast as Shylock in The Merchant of Venice. She had HIV and her life spiraled out of control into drugs and crime.  "Thank you for giving me a chance to be someone else," she said after our performance, "if only for one night."

Stealing cars and hustling were part of Stroud's world. He was familiar with guns and drugs.  And he didn't get Othello at first.  He had to read it over and over. But eventually he understood that like himself, here was a "flawed" man who he identified with.  As reported by Meghan Irons, he says "I am human. I make mistakes. I am misunderstood.’’

The women I taught needed too to open their hearts, to forgive themselves and come to grips with their lives. With theatre, we get to walk around in the shoes of another.  Just this year, my students at the community college–non-actors all– acted out a scene from Miguel Pinero's haunting play, Short Eyes, about a pedophile who is murdered by other prisoners behind bars.  They bravely acted out the murder scene and each one had to confront his or her desire to kill the man who hurt children. Murderers, we forgive, they believed when they first began reading the play — but not pedophiles.  However, once they felt what it was like to be in that scene or watch it from the sidelines, their perspectives were changed. They realized that every person has a story and a man or woman is more than their crimes.

Theatre opens up our hearts and our minds and gives us a chance to live and learn from a life unlike our own. I hope Anthony will keep finding himself in Shakespeare and keep believing that his destiny is not written in the stars.
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My LTE about this young man was published this week in The Globe.