Luke 23:39-42 depicts the popularized narrative of “the Thief on the Cross.” In the Sunday School favorite, Jesus promises the ‘criminal’ a spot in paradise because of his demonstration of faith — the ultimate testimony to his healing from a life of crime.
Unfortunately, some Christians who hail this scripture fail to practice the same forgiveness and acceptance of those who society has deemed criminals. What is even worse is that some of us may care less about their civil rights, living by the pretext that “they get what they deserve” or “they can’t change.”
If I have learned anything from my work with the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker-based non-profit that advocates for civil rights and prison reform, it is that there are many ills in our prison system that the common man fails to acknowledge because of unfair assumptions. For those who do not know what happens before and after the drop of the unforgiving gavel that slams a man into a dark cell, it is important to familiarize yourself with the system that puts many of us people of color behind bars.
Mass incarceration is the new civil rights fight. Today, many advocates for social justice even dare to call it “The New Jim Crow,” following the lead of black law professor Michelle Alexander of Ohio State University.
But why, you may ask? Why should we fight or accept these men and women who have harmed our community? Aren’t they criminals anyway?
Well, lets look at the numbers: according to the 2010 U.S. Census, Black-males constitute 17 percent of the population, but 41 percent of the nation’s prisons and roughly 85 percent of NY State’s system.; 1 in every three black youth born after 2000 is expected to find himself in the prison system before he hits the age of 40, which is a higher percentage than the amount of black males expected to graduate with a bachelor of arts; and according to a Health and Drug study, Blacks make up 14 percent of the drug user population, but constitute 54 percent of drug convictions in the U.S. Criminal Justice system.
There is no need to explain that poverty and socio-economic conditions that prevail in our communities creates an inviting environment for crime. However, the racial disparities in the U.S. prison system are troubling. The numbers imply that something funky is going on in the courtroom when alternatives to incarceration and more effective parole officers permeate affluent communities, but leave the inner-city in the shadow of Jim Crow’s shackles.
Although we may be happy to have one less ‘criminal’ on our block, have you ever asked what happens after they are thrown into the penitentiary? Or even a more simple question: what are prisons designed for?
When someone commits a crime, what they need is healing — the sort of forgiveness that God granted the thief on the cross. However, sending them nearly 400 miles away from their families (for a Brooklynite who is sent upstate) into an environment where gang life is personified and drug addictions and mental illnesses go untreated only worsens their conditions — henceforth, recidivism rates, or the likeliness an ex-offender will commit a new crime, are over 50 percent.
When they are released, they have nothing but a few dollars to their name and are tossed into transitional housing in the grittiest back streets of the inner-city. When they look for work, the infamous “box” obstructs them from employment, public housing, or credit loans, and perhaps the greatest remnant of Jim Crow, they are denied the right to vote (with the exception of Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Kansas and Colorado). Believe it or not, nearly 32 percent of black males from Florida were not allowed to vote in the 2000 presidential elections because of their felonious record. Imagine how that may have affected all of the confusion in the Sun Shine state’s ballot shenanigans.
What needs to happen are more support groups like the Osborne Association and, a skill that I truly admire, prison missions. If you aren’t ready to accept them back into your community, you can always trust that God will not forsake them.
If prisons are truly designed to heal people and communities, then their addictions and mental illnesses must come to the forefront of their prison stint. It is time to start treating the issues and not the mans reaction to them.
But in order for us to do so, we must recognize that a man can heal and find Christ, even when the state has thrown him on the Cross with his own neighbors shouting, “crucify him.”
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