![]() ![]() I hope we can start asking questions about the ways that we disappear those who experience incarceration in the field of genetic counseling, and become critical of systems of incarceration in general. Ultimately, we are all both of those things. ![]() Each patient, each person deserves dignity, autonomy, and respect this is true for both people who have been harmed and who have done harm. I have come to feel that “disappearing” people is not in line with the stated values of our profession. I recently started asking questions about incarceration through a professional lens. It took me hundreds of questions and hours of reading and conversations to arrive at this new knowledge I am still learning every day. However, in the words of Angela Davis, “ prisons do not disappear social problems, they disappear human beings.” Instead of providing solutions, prisons may actually increase harm by housing people in dangerous, traumatizing environments that leave them less able to function in society once released (Davis, 2003 Law, 2021). Instead, they are primarily a misguided attempt to offload the consequences of our social problems. Although certainly many people in prisons have caused harm (as have many who have never been to prison), our prisons provide few (if any) resources aimed at personal or societal growth and healing, redemption, restitution for victims of harm, or solutions to the root causes of harm. ![]() Our culture is rife with generational trauma related to systems of oppression (as my students aptly pointed out) that feeds violence. For example, evidence suggests that the single most impactful program that could be implemented to reduce crime, is universal healthcare (Doleac, 2018). My experiences taught me to ask questions, and I now know that the majority of people incarcerated in America are serving time for “crimes of poverty” or acts related to the extensive exploitation of a system that denies universal access to the basic tools of life such as healthcare, education, and a living wage (Hayes, 2020). Before I had any exposure to prison life and the stories of incarcerated people, I had not questioned why people went to prison or the utility of prisons as part of a system of justice. My relationships with incarcerated people have forced me to be honest about the stigma we still place upon them. She could likely not become board certified, let alone make it past a graduate school admissions committee. My heart sank knowing that the answer was almost certainly “No.” In nearly all states that have licensure, a felony will automatically disqualify you. She was looking to help others upon her release and the class had resonated with her as someone who had long been interested in genealogy. At the end of the class, one of the women who had been the most engaged asked me if she could also become a genetic counselor. The students made ties between social family histories of trauma and complex modes of genetic inheritance. The discussion was lively and thoughtful. At one point I taught a short course on family health history to a group of women incarcerated in a state prison in Utah. In graduate school, I began teaching genetics in prison. As a genetic counselor, teaching people about genetics and how it fits into their lives is obviously a passion of mine.
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