Breaking the
Chains:
Mass Incarceration
& Systems of Exploitation
Come to Washington,
DC, April 17-20, 2015, for the 13th Annual National Gathering of Ecumenical
Advocacy Days for Global Peace with Justice titled, "Breaking the Chains:
Mass Incarceration and Systems of Exploitation."
Join over 1,000
Christian advocates in building a movement to shake the foundations of systems
of human exploitation
(Acts
16:16-40), including a prison-industrial system that incarcerates millions of
people in the U.S. and abroad. A world that incarcerates so many and allows
some to profit from the exploitation of slave, trafficked and forced labor
remains far from the “beloved
community”
which we are all called to seek.
The U.S. makes
up only five percent of the world's population yet holds nearly a quarter of
the world's prisoners. Still, “imprisonment” is a worldwide problem and
takes various forms, as everywhere people around the world remain trapped in
detention centers, prisons, factories and drug wars that bind and dehumanize
individuals for political or economic profit.
Lamentations
asks, “When all the prisoners of the land are crushed under foot, when human
rights are perverted in the presence of the Most High, when one’s case is
subverted – does the Lord not see it?” (Lam. 3:34-36) Do we?
As people of
faith, we denounce the elements in our world that justify such systems of
exploitation and mass incarceration. At
EAD, we will confess our personal and corporate failure to break the chains of
poverty, racism, and greed institutionalized in our laws, economy, and social behaviors
that collude to perpetuate such human exploitation and strip civil and human
rights.
for all and restoration of right relationships. Through prayer, worship, advocacy training,
networking and mobilization with other Christians, we will face the reality of mass incarceration and corporate exploitation, and call for national policies that bring liberation both to the prisoner and to a world in need of restoration – all culminating with EAD’s Congressional Lobby Day on Capitol Hill
Before Ecumenical Advocacy Days join us for Compassion Peace and Justice Training Day on Friday April 17th! More Details Soon!
