What follows are
direct quotes from the 50-page final social statement adopted by the ELCA.
Social Statement
Document
Because mass incarceration causes significant harms, both
personal and social, the ELCA strongly urges those who make and administer
correctional policies to take all appropriate measures to limit the use of
incarceration as a sanction for criminal offenses. Toward that end this
statement identifies three specific paths: pursue alternatives to
incarceration, reform sentencing laws and policies, and closely scrutinize
national drug policy.
A fundamental transformation of mindset about criminal
justice is required that challenges the logic equating more punitive measures
with more just ones.
Introduction
As this statement is adopted, one in 34 adults in the United
States is under some form of correctional control and more citizens are
imprisoned as percentage of the population than in any other country on earth,
even those with comparable crime rates. The U.S. spends 60 billion dollars
every year for corrections alone and they who work in the criminal justice
system of then feel stressed to the breaking point. People of color and people
living in poverty are disproportionately harmed by problems within the system.
Concerned that so many cries- from victims, the incarcerated, their families,
communities, those wrongly convicted, those who work in the system- have not
heard, the ECLA is prompted to speak and act.
Often we have been negligent or allowed fear or bias to
dictate responses to crime.
Over the past generation, the adjudicative process has been
significantly affected by changes to sentencing policies. This church affirms
the importance of equal treatment in sentencing, but expresses the concern that
sentencing reform has become synonymous with increasingly harsher sentences.
Prisons
Massive overcrowding contributes considerably to the
dehumazing problems in the U.S. prison system. Inmates fear physical and sexual
violence from each other and staff and worry about threats of future violence
if reported. Gangs often control the culture of prisons. Inmates are powerless
in interactions with correctional staff, some of whom degrade inmates through
language and physical intimidation. All inmates experience despair from lack of
control and inexpressible loneliness from separation.
Massive overcrowding today worsens conditions to the point
of inhumane treatment of the incarcerated. Dangers to physical safety are real
and declining health through poor conditions is likely. Cost-saving measures
have caused some governments to contract with private firms to incarcerate
offenders, raising many ethical questions.
A contributing factor to inhumane conditions involves the
increased proportion of the mentally ill in jails and prison, currently well
over half of the population. As the institutionalized mental illness population
of the U.S. has been reduced by more than 80 percent over recent decades, many
of those released have ended up homeless or in prisons. Imprisonment is not
therapeutic by nature. Placement in jails and prisons has the effect of
criminalizing mental illness, and puts the mentally ill at risk for exploitation
by other inmates. The incarceration of those with special needs without
sufficient services contributes considerably to prison volatility. The ELCA has
addressed the needs of people living with mental illness and noted problems
related to the incarcerated in its 2012 social message “The Body of Christ and
Mental Illness.”
Reform sentencing
laws and policies
Numerous sentencing policies have been adopted since the
1980s, including mandatory minimum sentences, habitual offender laws, truth-in-sentencing
laws and sentencing guidelines. Their implementation has led to increases in
the use of incarceration and in the length of sentences, and has limited
judicial discretion in the sentencing process.
Mandatory minimum sentences that impose lengthy fixed
punishments on offenders and prohibit judges from considering mitigating
factors, have been used most extensively in response to drug-related offenses.
There is mounting and persuasive evidence that the war on
drugs has had a disproportionate impact on people living in poverty and people
of color. Law enforcement practices regarding drug offenses often have targeted
disadvantaged communities, and the sentencing policies regarding drug crimes
have had racially disparate effects. Despite the fact that Caucasians and
African Americans engage in drug offenses (both possession and distribution) at
similar rates, Black people have been far more likely than White people to be
arrested for drug offenses.
First, the criminal justice system must acknowledge the
racial disparities, and address the implicit and explicit racism that persists
there; second, it must recognize the special needs of juvenile offenders;
third, it must stop the privatization of prison facilities; and fourth, it must
foster the full reintegration of ex-offenders into the community.
Racial discrimination
Acknowledge racial disparities and end discrimination
Recognize the special needs of youth offenders
Aware of the mounting evidence of the system’s deep and
abiding problems, the ELCA calls for the adoption of a variety of reforms. The
leading concern is to decrease the incarcerated population, but other reforms
delineated in this statement are significant in their own right.
At a deeper level, however, this statement recognizes that a
more fundamental transformation in thinking about criminal justice is required.
It calls for a transformed mindset, one that counteracts the logic equating
more punitive measures with more just ones. This mindset challenges current
undertones of vengeance, violence and racism and permits everyone in the
criminal justice system to be seen as members of human communities, created in
the image of God and worthy of appropriate and compassionate response.
The ELCA recognizes that retreat from unduly harsh
sentencing policies and the over-utilization of the incarceration may be
motivated by economic factors, rather than by a moral critique of the way the
system functions. Improvement for any reason is important to the individuals
involved, but this church maintains that responses to criminality should be
made on theological, moral and rational grounds as well. Changes made simply
for economics are less likely to endure.
Today it is important to join with others of good will to
challenge the flawed public consensus about crime and criminal justice. Until a
shift occurs in the public consensus, criminal justice policies likely will
persist that recognize neither the injustice nor the inefficiency of many of
our current responses to the crime.
The ELCA therefore recommits itself to ministry with, for,
to and among the many, many people whose voices cry out within our criminal
justice system. “For what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and
to love kindness, and to walk humble with your God?” (Micah 6:8)
Conclusion
Related to mass incarcerated rates is the troubling
emergence of much more punitive attitude toward the incarcerated. As the
population grows, services are being greatly reduced or eliminated, such as
educations and recreational opportunities or access to counseling and spiritual
care.
Since 2004, more than 20 states have enacted or proposed legislation
to reform sentencing policies. These legislative changes have focused on several
types of reform. Primary attention has been given to increasing sentencing
options that divert drug offenders from incarceration to community-based
treatment alternatives and expanding sentencing alternatives to incarceration
for other non-violent offenders.
Author’s note:
Compressing 50 pages into two and a half is not the best way to pay justice to
the task force and all the work they did conducting the study over the five
years, but it is a start in echoing the words of wisdom found in the report.
They are well written and coincide with many of the philosophies of my own
work.
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