By the Reverend Dr. J. Herbert Nelson
In the United States of
America, we incarcerate more people than anywhere else in the world. While the
U.S. is home to five percent of the world’s population, we nonetheless
incarcerate 25 percent of the world’s prisoners. Our claim to be the land of
the free is scarred by the issues surrounding mass incarceration, which include
the deep legacy of ongoing racism in this country, a private, for-profit Prison
Industrial System, disparate mandatory sentencing that unjustly targets people
of color and non-violent offenders, and a failure to live into God’s call for
restorative justice, which focuses on making relationship right and on
restitution, rather than on retribution and punishment.
According to the Sentencing Project, 2.2 million persons are
incarcerated in the United States. This represents a 500 percent increase over
the past 30 years. The Prison Industrial System is responsible for the
incarceration of one in three young African American men – in prison, in jail,
on probation, or on parole — yet mass incarceration tends to be categorized as
a criminal justice issue, rather than a racial justice or civil rights issue
(or crisis).
In the wake of the release of the United States Department of
Justice’s investigation of the Ferguson Police Department, it is clear that
there are cases of long-term mistrust among marginalized communities. This
mistrust and fear stems from a deep-seated practice by law enforcement to
target and over-criminalize communities of color. It is difficult for any
community, targeted by the very people who are called to protect them, to avoid
the struggles of over-criminalization.
During my ministry in Memphis, TN, it was clear that once the
perpetual cycle of the criminalization of a community begins, it negatively
impacts households and generations of people. Children are impacted by the
absence of an incarcerated parent. Jails and prisons become rites of passage
for young people and whole communities of both young and older persons are
destroyed by underground economies of guns, violence, sex trafficking, and too
many lives lost prematurely to drugs and alcohol.
The question we are raising at this year’s Compassion, Peace
and Justice Training Day and Ecumenical Advocacy Days pertains to more than
ending mass incarceration. We are raising deeper questions –
“How do we restore communities
that have experienced a historically negative impact by the criminal justice
system in the United States?”
“How do we eradicate the
corporate takeover of the United States and other countries across the globe,
which leads to the denial of human dignity and violations of human rights?”
For us, as Presbyterians, these are the related questions that
we ought to raise and take back to our local communities and congregations. Our
hope is that both of these training events will be a time of deep introspection
as to how Jesus Christ is calling you to be a disciple at a deeper level of
engagement.
Let’s come together with a mind to End Mass Incarceration and
Break the Chains of Systems of Exploitation.
SAVE THE DATE!
Ecumenical Advocacy Days
April 16-19, 2016
