Day 5: Christianity & the Prison System

Today was the most emotionally intensive day. We began in the Equal Justice Initiative’s Legacy Museum, which chronicled the evolution of slavery to mass incarceration and the death penalty. The evolution of slavery to lynching to the death penalty was something I was made aware of because of earlier exposure to the Equal Justice Initiative’s work. Mass incarceration and the death penalty are some of the battleground issues for racial equality, and I was most excited for this museum as I knew it would be what identified the pressing needs of our society. But I was infuriated at the museum by a quote by John Ehrlichman, who was Richard Nixon’s chief of domestic policy. Here is the following quote:

“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin. And then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

The admission of a top Nixon official that the intent of the administration in some of its most prominent action was to completely destroy communities is a blatant attack on democracy. To undermine the very core of a community with incarceration as a weapon highlights the injustice in the prison system. And yet, the legislature has failed to atone for the creation of these inequities. Instead, the support for this new Jim Crow remains.

The rest of the day was greatly informative as well, as we visited the EJI’s National Memorial for Peace and Justice which remembers those who were lynched and honors their memory by ensuring they are not forgotten. We saw the 16^th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham and met with Carolyn McKinstry, a survivor and friend of the four children killed in the bombing of the church. We also heard from Lisa McNair, the sister of Denise McNair who was killed in the bombing. We heard of their loss and their pain brought about by the hatred of others.

And yet, there is a deep misunderstanding that some of the institutions that exist today were not products of that hatred. Nixon, as Watergate would reveal, acted in his own interest instead of acting according to the rights of the people. Which has prompted me to consider more critically how a prison system can become more just and what is the nature of justice. Could it be the case that the justice system, rather than punitive, could become reformative: Rather than retributive, could it become reconciliatory?

As a Christian, I believe we are compelled to act in according to reconciliation. As Ms. McKinstry pointed out, it is the very narrative of the Bible that people come to reconcile to God by the atonement of Jesus Christ. The current prison system seeks no reconciliation, only punishment. Where are the sentencings that seek to educate and integrate individuals back into society? That seek to return the humanity back to all people? As I have heard throughout this week, Martin Luther King spoke of bigotry as a disease that must be cured. How can the victim have their humanity returned, and the perpetrator be cured, if there is no reconciliation? The perpetuation of sin is self-sustaining: it is in the fallen nature of humanity. It is only by the intervention of Jesus, by way of reconciliation via the atonement, that this cycle of sin can be broken.

So, I pray for the cycle of sin to be broken in our systems. I pray for the children who were sentenced to live their life in prison, a far more cruel death sentence, and for those serving sentences for chemical dependencies that they struggle to overcome. I pray for those who continue to fail to offer humanity to those who are human, and I pray for a system that may bring shalom.

Matt Jenkins

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