I wrote this while I was on a plane from Dallas to Indianapolis to participate in the 77th General Convention of the Episcopal Church.
On the front page of the New York Times today there is an article entitled, “Poor Land in Jail as Companies add Huge Fees for Probation.”
The article goes on to outline the stores of states, like Alabama,
which give their probation control over to for profit companies. This
article gives on woman's story. She received a speeding ticket for
$179. Now, three years later she is in debt for over $3,000 and has
spent more than 40 days in jail. These companies make money on the
backs of the poor. This country has handed over it's criminal justice
system, like probation and prisons, over to private companies. These
corporations seek only to increase their bottom line.
We incarcerate more people than any other
country on Earth. Jesus began his ministry by quoting the prophet
Isaiah. “The spirit of the Lord is on me, for he has anointed me to
bring good new to the afflicted. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to
captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim a
year of favour from the Lord.” (Luke 4:18-19 The New Jerusalem Bible)
The current system in this country is a punitive, profit driven system.
Jesus tells us that he is beginning a different system. Yet, 2,000
years later we aer still just starting to see glimpses of that community
that God is building through Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the Church.
We need to stand up and fight the
injustices before us. We need to look around us at all the “criminals”
and see that they too, just like you and me, are created in the image of
God. When we start to do that it is only natural to clamor loudly for
justice for all. God's most precious gift, our brothers and sisters,
are being mistreated in the name of a false god: Profit. We are called
to carry out Jesus' mission. We too will set the captives free.
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