Book Review: Beyond Prisons

So, this post begins my new attempt at offering a separate blog for references, mainly focusing on books I will be reviewing. Hopefully people will find this easy-to-use and helpful to their ministry and thinking. This book offers a unique topic of discussion in comparison with what I usually read.

Sometimes, God takes you places you never would have imagined going. That is how I wound up in a Delaware County Jail over a year ago, in a visitation cell, on the phone behind a protective glass window looking at a long-haired guy in orange . . . I mean there were times when I had to remind myself I wasn't in a television show. This was the real deal. Through a number of separate, yet connected, circumstances, I have wound up ministering to criminals in the Delaware county area. I have had conversation with people I never would have imagined: the convicts themselves, probation officers, half-way house directors, sex offenders, and numerous others. I'll try to post more of this experience at a later time, but all of that led me to pick up this book last year at a bag sale at Cokesbury.

God continues to stretch and grow me through the entire process, and reading this book has been part of that process - a very stretching process. Authors Laura Magnani and Harmon Wray are both active in the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group actively involved in the process of restorative justice as an alternative to the current criminal justice system in the United States.

As I began reading this book, I have to say it was a little uncomfortable - something I am not accustomed to as I consider myself a pretty open person (especially to liberal propositions). However, I was unprepared for the radical proposition proposed here by Wray and Magnani, and the more I read of their book, the more I empathized with their initiatives and the more I found myself rallying to their cry.

As I have posted in previous posts, I have an affinity for J.H. Yoder's theology of the state and the empire and consider myself a pacifist. I am more and more convinced that the role of Christians is not in the state and find that consistent with revelation both Old Testament and New, through the withdrawal of Israel from the empire to Jesus' choice to be suffering Servant over riotous zealot. I have applied this discussion to war, national political discussions, and many other matters, but have never had the opportunity to consider what the implications are for the criminal justice system.

Magnani and Wray offer a penetrating look at the great failure of the criminal justice system in our country. With my limited experience with working with offenders I have had at least a brief glimpse firsthand at what this justice system is all about on the local levels (I have never dealt with any kind of federal offenders). It is a system rooted in racism, classism, sexism and, with increasingly common movement towards privatization of prisons, driven by profit rooted in conflict of interest.

They present a well-researched argument piling up number after number illustrating the flaws in the current system. Fundamentally, their problem with the current system is that it is rooted in vengeance. They attack the fundamental principle that vengeance is rehabilitative. They propose moving from a system that is punitive and punishment driven to one that focuses on restoration and rehabilitation. While their goals and ambitions are lofty, they are consistent with the biblical picture of grace, forgiveness, and restoration.

It is perhaps in our discussions of prisoners and punishment where we fall furthest from the ideal of grace. The authors acknowledge that neither of them have been the victim of a heinous crime, but also acknowledge that the majority of those reading will not have been affected. The argument, for the most part, is one of theory. However, it is a theory that finds its way into action every day at courts, police stations, and prisons around the country. Our current system is not biblical and I am fully on the side of the authors when they state that we cannot support it.

Their summary of the system holds back no punches:
"It is a crisis that allows fellow human beings to be demonized. It is a crisis that legitimizes torture, total isolation of individuals (sometimes for a lifetime), sensory deprivation and abuse of power. It is a crisis that extends beyond prisons themselves into judicial, parole and probation, law enforcement, mental health, and public education systems. It further damages not only crime survivors and offenders, but also the families of both survivors and offenders. As the system becomes more and more dependent on profit-making companies, the 'public mission' of the system is lost behind the self-interest of every group wanting to make a buck - from the unions representing the guards on the tier to the corporate food-services companies, from the construction firms to the for-profit detention corporations." (p. 161)

The authors poignantly paint a picture of how the current system creates cyclical systems of incarceration, punishment, and obstacles that are insurmountable. We work from false presuppositions such as locking people up for their crimes is justifiable because it (1)keeps potential crimes from happening (though they do acknowledge there are a few people who need to be separated from society, but that number is but a fraction of the current 2 million of the prison population). (2) they "deserve" it because of their crimes, (3) it is prohibitive to others (they note, "who ever stops to think of the consequences before committing a crime?") All of these reasons for incarceration have been proven false, yet they are most frequently given publicly.

What if there were no jails? What an interesting concept. I know my first reaction was, whoa! But the more I allowed their arguments to settle, the more I believe them to be absolutely right. God is a God of forgiveness. No one deserves to be locked up for life in prison. What is the purpose of that end? I agree with Magnani and Wray that that serves neither the offender or the survivors (their choice in place of "victim.") All crimes should be seen as broken relationships, not broken laws. Crime is personal, not abstract offenses against inanimate law. Upon the breech of relationship, all effort must be sought to restore relationship and work towards reinstallation into the community.

Some will scoff at the authors' seemingly impossible proposal, but that is no reason to cast it aside. They are insistent that they propose an alternative system, not a tweaking of the current system. Again, I think a very important point

In their final chapter, they offer the AFSC's 12-Point Plan of action. It is too lengthy to offer here, but I think it gives both small and tangible steps as well as loftier and broader hopes of restoration in the future. They offer no easy fix, "Solutions must be complex and revolutionary in a society as dependent as ours on solving problems through police powers and repression. " (p. 163).

My guy feeling is that this is a topic that the average Christian has given little thought to, but one to which most average Christians would have a quick and sharp criticism and outcry in response to the proposal offered here. I believe this is yet another area where, as Shane Claiborn in his new book says, "The church has fallen in love with the state and she has lost her political imagination." We seem to believe that the state has come up with the best answers to social ills . . . where has the church's voice gone?