Behind the Veil

We do not hear that family members are told that they are only being informed about the deal the lawyers are making but they have no say in it either way. We don’t hear that there is victim compensation available but that only certain families will receive it – only the ones that can ‘prove how badly it impacted them’ as though there are some families that would not have been impacted. We do not hear how difficult it is to re-live the experience over again, opening wounds that were beginning to heal, in order to describe the whole traumatic story and fill out all the paperwork as required by the victim compensation board – only to be denied any assistance whatsoever. We don’t hear that the people on this board who make these judgements are not even qualified to assess the psychological and emotional states of individuals. We don’t hear that every piece of the justice system – police, lawyers, courts, jails, victim support – will say that they are doing the best they can – but they are doing it under a framework that doesn’t work. It is under an umbrella that does not keep the rain out. We do not hear that our system doesn’t work. We do not hear about it, and we do not address it – until we are personally impacted by the fact that it does not work.

The fact is that we are all personally impacted by it – we pay for it with our tax dollars, we pay for it when our safe communities become places of violence, we pay for it when we have to have more police monitoring our neighbourhoods. A change in the system will take years, if it happens at all, and human beings will continue to be impacted by the fact that homicide is real. In the meantime, Lean On Me addresses the needs in society to give hope after homicide, give a voice to those who cannot speak, and help prepare people and support them along their emotional and tumultuous journey through the system.