Week One: "The police can lie to you?" "Sure they can. It's illegal for you to lie to the police, but the police can lie to you all they want."
Week Four: "When you come in, you hear them say, 'fresh meat' and 'new fish,' and you think, 'I ain't no meat, and I ain't no fish.' "
Week Six: "What can we do to change the prison culture?" "It all comes down to the warden. If he doesn't think the prisoners deserve better treatment, nothing will change."
These are not lines from a documentary. These are just a few of the many memorable moments I experienced while discussing the book Outrageous Justice with a group from my church.
Outrageous Justice is a team effort by staff members of Prison Fellowship, most of whom have done time themselves. I first learned of this ministry when I read Born Again, by Chuck Colson. (NB: the link goes to the comic book, while I read the actual book, but I just couldn't resist sharing this wonderful abbreviated version. Decent portrait drawing, too! )
So, Outrageous Justice. There's a book, a DVD, and a Bible study guide. For those of you unfamiliar with the last genre, it is a series of lessons to be used in an adult Sunday school or small group format. It will generally include or reference some Scripture, summarize or supplement the content of the book or DVDs to which it is tied, and provide lots of questions for the individual or group to complete.
In this case, both the DVD and the questions seemed to assume a group that was not very familiar with the criminal justice system or the realities of prison. However, we were privileged in our setting to have several members who had been in prison, worked or volunteered in prison, and/or been crime victims. Indeed, the biggest takeaway of the whole experience was how extensive the US prison system is and how much it affects all of us.
To get a very quick overview of why Prison Fellowship might call our criminal justice system "outrageous," you might watch this episode of Adam Ruins Everything. Or maybe John Oliver could explain it to you. Or you could even commit to 13th, the full-length documentary that explores why our prison system is, as a new book says, The New Jim Crow. But actually, there's no better way to understand what's wrong with the way we do things than to sit with a room full of lawyers, social workers, mental health professionals, mental health consumers, people in recovery, people who have done time, and people who have lost property and even loved ones to crime, and discussing questions like, "How easy is it to rejoin society after being incarcerated? How easy should it be? What can I do to make reentry more manageable for those who want to change?"
Aspects of criminal justice that are outrageous and should be reformed are many. There's the paucity of support for victims, both inside the system and culturally. We typically think of rape victims when we think of this problem, but really any crime can be more devastating than we usually imagine. There's the fact that at any given time, almost half a million Americans are in jail not having been convicted of any crime. Most of these folks will lose their jobs because of nonattendance; many will also lose their families. Some will have their charges dropped when the real perpetrator is found; some will plea to a lesser charge whether they are actually guilty or not, just to avoid running the risk of being convicted of a greater charge. Some, of course, will eventually be tried, found guilty and sentenced. Those whose only crime was looking like someone an eyewitness described, or being with someone who had perpetrated a crime earlier, or having the same name as a known criminal, will lose their jobs and their families just as surely as those who actually committed an offense.
There's the belief that prison should be punitive, that prisoners do not "deserve" opportunities to better themselves. Margaret Atwood wrote a wonderful novel about a man who puts on Shakespeare plays with inmates; it turns out this is a thing that really happens. But, as in the novel, in real life, many people question why those who have committed crimes should have the privilege of education, particularly arts education, or of being paid a living wage, or of having money to buy soap and toothpaste when they have outstanding fines. In other words, many people would love to return to the Victorian world depicted by Charles Dickens! This is indeed outrageous.
Once I started learning about the issues with our prison system, I started to see more information about it everywhere. This book is a fantastic introduction mainly because it includes lots of stories from prisoners, victims and volunteers. If you don't have such a group in your own circle of acquaintance, this might be a good placebo!
