The Letter Still Rings True

In English class the other evening a new group of students were exposed to Dr. King’s profound and timeless “Letter from Birmingham Jail”.  Later that night I received the current issue of Virginia CURE’s (Citizens United for Rehabilitation of Errants) newsletter which presented dismal news for those of us languishing in Virginia’s prisons.  Dr. King’s letter is relevant to the struggle facing this country over the use of heavy sentences for nonviolent felons.

“We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.  Whatever effects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

There are now merely 2.3 million persons incarcerated in this country.   The effect on those people being locked up reverberates across every family, every community, every state in this nation.  The cost – in damage to the lives of inmates, their families and especially the victim themselves cannot even be calculated.  The repercussions of this “incarceration frenzy” reverberate for generations.  It affects every citizen in this country.

“Justice too long delayed is justice denied.”

Prison Fellowship founder Chuck Colson recently offered these comments:

“We overuse prisons.  We could put many people in a community correction system… What’s a crime and what’s punishable by prison are two different things…

The whole notion that we can deter people by longer prison sentences and tougher prison sentences is fallacious…

Prisons in America started as a Quaker reform:  the idea was that if we put criminals in isolation where they could repent before God, they would be transformed and then come out.  It went badly right from the beginning…”

Mr. Colson is correct.  The current system overusing sentences in a harsh manner is neither just nor does it create the desired result.  Any politician who tells you longer sentences reduce crime rates is lying.  But, then there is Governor Robert McDonnell.  McDonnell continually talks about giving everyone “a second chance”.  He touts his administrations’ re-entry initiative.  Yet, actions speak louder than words.  His Department of Corrections operates no differently than his predecessors.  His re-entry program is the exact same as the program in place before he took office.  When State Senator Donald McEachin proposed legislation to give additional earned good time days to inmates actively pursuing educational and vocational programs, it was McDonnell who sent his representatives to the legislature to voice the Governor’s opposition to “earned credits”.

“Time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively…We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that time is always ripe to do right.”

Longer, harsher sentences destroy.  No good comes from a man – or woman – spending even one more day in prison than is absolutely necessary.

The goal of prison should be to make a lawbreaker accept responsibility for their wrongdoing, be remorseful, give the victim a sense of justice, and restore the victim, the offender and the community to a place of wholeness.  That does not describe today’s prison system.

To paraphrase Dr. King, now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of prison & sentencing injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.  The stakes, the very soul of this nation, depend upon it.

A friend recently sent me the Order of Worship for a Celtic service he attended.  I paused as I read the sharing of grace:

Love your enemies, and do good, expecting nothing in return.  Be merciful just as God is merciful.  Do not judge and you will not be judged; do not condemn and you will not be condemned.  Forgive, and you will be forgiven.

That should be the cornerstone of any prison reform.  That should be the cornerstone of our lives.

Strange Bedfellows

I was sent a copy of the recently released NAACP report calling for a change in current incarceration policies. The report appropriately titled “Misplaced Priorities: Over Incarcerate, Under Educate” (http://naacp.3cdn.net/01d6f368edbe135234_bq0m68x5h.pdf)  is a scathing indictment of America’s love affair with prisons. What was truly ironic is who is standing with the NAACP and their clarion call for reform. Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform – a conservative advocacy group – stood directly behind NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous as he presented the report. Republican Presidential hopeful and former Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich sent a letter of support. What would bring such diverse parties together? Sadly, it is the growing realization that this nation’s prison system is failing. They say politics makes strange bedfellows. Perhaps justice requires even stranger ones.



The NAACP report is eye opening for its simple, direct message. They call the current system the “prison industrial complex”. That is quite an apt name for a system nationwide that costs almost $70 billion per year to maintain. As I’ve pointed out before, the lucrative sweetheart contracts given by state DOC’s to conglomerates like Keefe and Global Tel Link line private pockets at the expense of taxpayers, inmates and their families alike.


As the recent Pew Center Study (http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/uploadedFiles/Pew_State_of_Recidivism.pdf)  showed, increased spending and incarceration rates have done nothing to reduce recidivism. In fact, the opposite has happened. Shortly after the Pew Study was released, Virginia began touting the fact that “sixteen years after banning parole, Virginia has defied the nation’s unshakably high recidivism level…”


The story reported that Virginia’s 2007 recidivism rate (for inmates released three years earlier) was 28.3 percent versus a national rate of 43.3 percent. Buried just below that “amazing statistic”, attributable to Virginia’s unjust denial of early release to model inmates, was this fact, “the rate has edged up slightly since 2000”. In other words, the rate was lower just after parole was abolished. Sounds to me like the trend is going the wrong way.


As the Washington Post noted in an editorial on April 18, the “NAACP report…is the most recent to argue convincingly that public safety can be preserved and tax dollars saved with smarter policies…Individuals must be held accountable for breaking the law, and in many cases, especially those involving violent offenses, imprisonment is the best way to protect public safety…But the levels of incarceration are financially unsustainable and in many instances counterproductive…”


The “radical proposals” the NAACP came up with that are supported by all these conservatives include shortening prison terms (recommendation # 8) and increasing parole release rates (recommendation # 9). Ironically, at the recently completed session of the General Assembly, Delegate Donald McEachin’s proposed bill to give Virginia inmates enrolled in vocational or educational programs (and the classroom aides) ten days of earned good time credit (versus the current 4 ½) never made it out of committee.


Sadly, it appears that the NAACP report, along with all the other evidence being compiled to show that prison reform is needed is falling on deaf ears here in Virginia.


In a Washington Post letter to the editor (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/window-dressing-in-virginia/2011/04/15/AFFX03vD_story.html) on April 15th, Vienna resident John Horejsi, a member of Governor McDonnell’s “Prisoner and Juvenile Re-entry Council” noted that of the numerous recommendations made by this group on issues addressing recidivism, parole, taxpayer costs, “only one…unfortunately, was presented to go forward.” He then said the following:


“There is widespread agreement that we, a group of citizens asked by the governor to serve, were perhaps no more than window dressing.”


Is Governor McDonnell just another politician using “tough on crime” sound bites to buy votes or is he courageous? The answer will be seen if he becomes a strange bedfellow of the NAACP report.