Second chance for all and the human side of justice – review of Recovering America

Recovering America (2024) by Robert F. Kennedy proves to us that everyone deserves a second chance. The documentary also implicitly underscores the importance of restorative justice. At 23:07, the documentary features a successful Utah enterprise that directly demonstrates second chance, as the employees there once had drug issues. At 13:42 and 16:25, judges Steven Leifman and Maria Elena Verde say that many drug addicts in prison should not be imprisoned from the start. They add that drug addicts have psychiatric disorders and histories of violence. The judges add that the justice system has recovery programs to keep drug addicts out of jail and to enable the addicts to heal. Most drug addicts chose the recovery program.

Drug addiciton is indeed an effect of violence and psychiatric disorders. As the solutions to those issues are often out of reach, the affected are forced to seek more volatile and ultimately self-destructive methods to soothe the pain, including drug abuse. When they are forced to stop the substance use without an appropriate healing system, the wounds reopen, forcing them to relapse. These are the basic mechanics of addiction. This is why rehabilitation tends to require moving the drug addict far outside the environment that gave them the pains from the start. In other words, second chance entails saying goodbye to your old environment. Yes, a literal and permanent relocation from one community to another, for the former addict's betterment. Why permanent? Because human brains remember places of danger for years, and this is related to survival instincts.