10 11 And when chances arrive, these are often single chances without redemption. A failed subject in school can mean a lifetime of poverty and articulations ofjustification for that poverty. "They just couldn't cut it,'I we will say, unaware of the myriad factors that led to that moment. We have a prison and social system that does not allow for exiting. Our policing, and often our social systems, remain cruel and violent. Thousands bear the indelible mark of an ex-offender, someone with a criminal record. We choose to focus on retribution rather than restorative justice and it is clear that our system criminalises poverty and difference. We need to break out of these brutal systems to find freedom and to find real democracy