Virtual Reality: Soul Rehabilitation

I believe virtual reality can be used as a testing ground and a walkable blueprint for rehabilitation back to life from prisons, as well as a safe beginning step for anti-racism training for police officers. It’s real enough to feel real, it’s experiential and intentionally interactive, it’s way more affordable than robo-dogs, and could be used to simulate real life situations without the cost of actors/greatly reduce the amount of situations becoming fatal when someone doesn’t know how to act nonviolently. 

I don’t think this is an end all be all solution for prisoner rehabilitation/police reform. That is a rotten tree that needs to be up rooted and replaced with compassionate, HUMANIZING, tactics that empower the community to treat each other better. My hope is that the technology will leave room for correcting behavior again and again  so that young people of color who have died at the hands of police can stop being used as social pariahs for change. 

in simple terms my solution would require in virtual reality simulation software to be developed that shows real human situations without requiring the use of human life. For cops to be more anti-racist they need to be trained in situations where they might act with violence and have that behavior be intercepted and corrected before it gets replicated and reinforced into society. Same goes with prisoners. Some incarcerated folks have been so removed from society that they might not know how to do some thing as simple as setting up an email setting up a bank account basically starting back in to a world that’s completely different from once they left it. With video walkthroughs, and interactivity, prisoners can be empowered as human beings and trained on a higher quality level with a lower cost in production. I believe this technology can be used to help integrate us more instead of isolate.

this solution targets the heart of so many issues being reveled in the news today. People of color need to stop dying and police need to stop killing them. If we don’t train or police with real life simulations then they’re only gonna learn after they make their mistakes. And for those incarcerated, they shouldn’t just be sitting around or contributing to do industrialize prison complex, They should be adamantly working to rehabilitate themselves so that they never have to go back to prison again. People need people and sometimes that’s too much to ask. By using a technological middleman, reality might be the bridge to train the most divided to come together.

I think my solution is aligned with the moment and message because this technology is available and affordable today and is much more helpful than harmful surveillance. These murders at the hands of police are happening every day. As someone who lives in Portland Oregon and right next to all the crazy atrocities I do know that virtual reality goggles won’t stop protest plus today they might be the solution to rehabilitation for the future.

this is just an idea that’s been circling in my head the whole time that I have been living in Portland. You see before that I attended Hampshire College in Amherst Massachusetts. The school so liberal we overthrew our own president in 2019 after 75 of protesting in the presidents office (and shower). This was done by kids for kids and we know with the power of spreading the word using technology for good and believing in change, change can happen. I then moved to Portland where the pandemic quickly hit and my plans changed as well. Although, I lack contacts, I have the experience of being on the ground of some movements that are being amplified all over the world. I have the ideas, I just need the team.