People, Not Profit: Presbyterians Form Criminal Justice Network

Rev. Sala W.J. Nolan Gonzales

Last Thurs­day, March 1, 2012, Pres­by­te­ri­ans all across the coun­try hand-delivered let­ters to their gov­er­nors, say­ing no to pri­vate pris­ons: not in our state, not any­where. Forty-eight gov­er­nors in total received let­ters faxed, emailed, and deliv­ered. It was the first act of the newly formed Pres­by­ter­ian Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Net­work, based squarely on Gen­eral Assem­bly pol­icy. And it was in direct response to the “cor­rec­tions invest­ment ini­tia­tive” from Cor­rec­tions Cor­po­ra­tion of Amer­ica (CCA) seek­ing to pur­chase state-owned cor­rec­tional facil­i­ties. To ensure prof­itabil­ity, the states would need to com­mit to pri­va­tiz­ing their pris­ons for 20 years and guar­an­tee a 90% pris­oner occu­pancy rate. So much for reha­bil­i­ta­tion and end­ing recidivism.

This new Network’s action came just two weeks after the Feb­ru­ary 17–19 crim­i­nal jus­tice con­vo­ca­tion at Stony Point Cen­ter in New York, orga­nized by the Pres­by­ter­ian Health, Edu­ca­tion and Wel­fare Asso­ci­a­tion (PHEWA). Just two weeks… lead­ing one per­son to exclaim, “In all my years as an ‘activist’ in pris­oner advo­cacy, I have never seen a group work so fast and effec­tively!” Another sim­ply said, “I am in awe.”

Dur­ing that Feb­ru­ary con­fer­ence, one phrase kept being repeated: it’s about time.

Where are the Pres­by­te­ri­ans?
For sev­eral years now, the Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.) has been with­out an office for crim­i­nal jus­tice. While con­gre­ga­tions and indi­vid­u­als have been active in min­istry and advo­cacy, there has been, since 2006, no one to resource, orga­nize, and coor­di­nate these local efforts on behalf of the church and for the sake of sus­tained, national change. This is despite the fact that the PC(USA) has a long his­tory of engag­ing this sub­ject, includ­ing the 2003 Gen­eral Assem­bly res­o­lu­tion call­ing for the abo­li­tion of pri­vate pris­ons.

In 2010, the 219^th Gen­eral Assem­bly instructed PHEWA to con­sider cre­at­ing a crim­i­nal jus­tice network.

Laura Markle Downton

Chal­lenges and Oppor­tu­ni­ties
As we gath­ered together on that oddly warm week­end of Feb­ru­ary 17, we were con­fronted with a stark real­ity: over 2.4 mil­lion peo­ple incar­cer­ated in the United States, with rates higher than any other coun­try; recidi­vism rates often at 70%; pris­ons over-crowded with high per­cent­ages of non-violent drug offend­ers; a move­ment to pri­va­tize pris­ons for profit and thereby dis-incentivize crim­i­nal jus­tice reform and reha­bil­i­ta­tion; and a sys­tem that dis­pro­por­tion­ately affects (tar­gets) peo­ple of color in what Michelle Alexan­der has called “the new Jim Crow.”

As we listed the chal­lenges before us, we acknowl­edged that we had an uphill strug­gle before us. CCA, after all, had already sent let­ters to 48 gov­er­nors, and here we were, just “talk­ing” about start­ing a net­work. They are orga­nized. They are funded: CCA alone brings in bil­lions of dol­lars per year.

But what could have turned into a gripe ses­sion became a detailed analy­sis of strengths and weak­nesses, oppor­tu­ni­ties and threats. For we have much on our side. The cause of crim­i­nal jus­tice is reach­ing pub­lic con­scious­ness in ways not seen before. Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow: Mass Incar­cer­a­tion in the Age of Color Blind­ness has gal­va­nized a move­ment in churches and com­mu­ni­ties all across the coun­try, includ­ing the To Be Free At Last cam­paign, orga­nized by the Samuel DeWitt Proc­tor Con­fer­ence of African Amer­i­can churches. Staff and faith lead­ers in the United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, and now the Pres­by­ter­ian Church (U.S.A.) are devot­ing grow­ing energy to the plight of the incar­cer­ated, with the United Methodists even vot­ing to divest from pri­vate pris­ons. New York The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary is train­ing men and women who are incar­cer­ated to be min­is­ters. In Cal­i­for­nia, mil­lions of dol­lars were diverted from pris­ons to alter­na­tive forms of jus­tice sim­ply because “churches got involved.” Notable media such as The New York Times and The New Yorker have recently pub­lished on the sub­ject. Accord­ing to Rev. Sala Nolan, the move­ment to save Troy Davis and his sub­se­quent exe­cu­tion cat­a­pulted part of the move­ment called “Occupy.”

Even our weak­nesses might prove to be strengths. All over urban Amer­ica there are vacant churches that could be adapted to include halfway houses and new wor­ship­ing communities.

It’s a Moral Argu­ment
Basi­cally, and per­haps most impor­tantly, we have the moral ground: it is wrong to incar­cer­ate and sub­ject to vio­lence so many peo­ple for whom there exist viable, alter­na­tive forms of jus­tice; it is wrong to pri­or­i­tize ret­ri­bu­tion, profit, and sim­ply “ware­hous­ing” peo­ple, over com­mu­nity, fam­ily, and indi­vid­ual restora­tion; it is wrong to allow racism and other biases to con­tinue unchecked in our “jus­tice” system.

Argued pos­i­tively, these are our broth­ers and sis­ters in whom Jesus Christ him­self resides (Matthew 25), and we have a respon­si­bil­ity to them. Our great­est oppor­tu­nity is sim­ply to get some­one inside a prison, to talk with a cur­rently or for­merly incar­cer­ated per­son, to lis­ten, to enter a sto­ried rela­tion­ship, and be trans­formed. Because, it is much harder to “lock ‘em up and throw away the key” when you know, and care about, the per­son being locked up.

Open­ing Prayer

The PHEWA Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Con­vo­ca­tion
It was this moral argu­ment and these rela­tion­ships that brought peo­ple to the con­fer­ence: pas­tors, dea­cons, prison reform advo­cates, com­mu­nity orga­niz­ers, prison min­is­ters, the for­merly incar­cer­ated, peo­ple with fam­ily and neigh­bors incar­cer­ated. One woman who had been doing re-entry min­istry said, “I am haunted by the peo­ple we left behind.”

Among the speak­ers were:

• The Rev. Sala W.J. Nolan Gon­za­les, the UCC Min­is­ter for Crim­i­nal Jus­tice and Human Rights, once spir­i­tual advi­sor to Troy Davis, exe­cuted on Sep­tem­ber 21, 2011;
• Laura Markle Down­ton, the UMC Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Grass­roots Coor­di­na­tor, trained in organizing;
• Alex Fried­mann, Asso­ciate Edi­tor for Prison Legal News with spe­cial­iza­tion in oppos­ing prison pri­va­ti­za­tion, him­self for­merly incar­cer­ated for ten years;
• Hans Hal­lund­baek, cofounder of Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Through the Arts (oper­at­ing in five NY State pris­ons) and Coor­di­na­tor of the Hud­son River Pres­by­ter­ian Prison Partnership;
• The Rev. Dr. Don­ald Shriver, Emer­i­tus Pres­i­dent of the Fac­ulty and William E. Dodge Pro­fes­sor of Applied Chris­tian­ity at Union The­o­log­i­cal Sem­i­nary (NYC), and Dr. Peggy Shriver, for­mer research direc­tor at the National Coun­cil of Churches;
• Robert Sloan, researcher and Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of the Voter’s Leg­isla­tive Trans­parency Project, him­self for­merly incarcerated;
• The Rev. Dr. T. Richard Sny­der, founder of The Restora­tive Jus­tice Project of the Mid­coast; and
• The Rev. Trina Zelle, National orga­nizer and Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of PHEWA and found­ing direc­tor of Ari­zona Inter­faith Alliance for Worker Jus­tice, Arizona’s only worker rights center.

PHEWA was intent on mak­ing the con­fer­ence more than a “Crim­i­nal Jus­tice 101”. Of course, there were ses­sions devoted to rais­ing aware­ness on var­i­ous sub­jects, includ­ing death penalty oppo­si­tion, restora­tive jus­tice, prison min­istry, pro­longed soli­tary con­fine­ment as men­tal tor­ture, prison pri­va­ti­za­tion, and con­tract prison labor. But the real ques­tion was: How do we inte­grate these and other issues into a focused net­work orga­nized for change?

While whole arti­cles could be writ­ten on the dis­cus­sions led by the var­i­ous pre­sen­ters and orga­niz­ers (and per­haps will be offered in a future jour­nal issue of Unbound), the cul­mi­na­tion of the con­vo­ca­tion was Sun­day morn­ing as we gath­ered to dis­cuss “next steps.”

Not Just Another Com­mit­tee
It had been a long week­end. We had heard many depress­ing sta­tis­tics. Hon­estly, I would not have been sur­prised if Sun­day morning’s meet­ing yielded lit­tle more than half-hearted com­mit­ments and a desire sim­ply to go home. Most con­fer­ences, after all, raise a great deal of aware­ness and… well… that’s about it. Peo­ple speak prophet­i­cally, bang their fists on tables in indig­na­tion, but when com­mit­ments and action are sought, the room becomes silent; peo­ple mur­mur about how busy they are and edge for the door.

Yet, that is not what hap­pened on this par­tic­u­lar Sun­day morn­ing. The par­tic­i­pants were enthu­si­as­tic, ener­gized. We imme­di­ately launched into plan­ning an action—the response to the CCA pro­posal to the forty-eight gov­er­nors. We col­lec­tively deter­mined our iden­tity: we would ful­fill a unique need by focus­ing on mobi­liz­ing Pres­by­te­ri­ans, while net­work­ing and part­ner­ing with ecu­meni­cal and inter-faith efforts. Our mis­sion: “To end the mass incar­cer­a­tion cri­sis and put peo­ple before profit.”

Though it was tempt­ing to delve into the nuances of for­mu­lat­ing a com­plex mis­sion state­ment, 501c3 sta­tus, and other details that we struc­tured Pres­by­te­ri­ans adore, the group resisted: that struc­ture will come, but for now, they said, we need to seal this com­mu­nity in bap­tismal action. This, it was clear, was not going to be just another committee.

The let­ter is just the start, but a clear sig­nal to pri­va­tiz­ers that at least some church peo­ple do not see pris­on­ers as a cash crop. Where the Pres­by­ter­ian Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Net­work will go from here is an open ques­tion. But it is a provoca­tive ques­tion. Because if the Feb. 17–19 con­fer­ence is any sign of what is to come, if peo­ple dri­ving hours to hand-deliver a let­ter to their gov­er­nors on just a few days notice is any indi­ca­tion of the com­mit­ment already invested in this endeavor, I sus­pect we are the wit­nesses of the birth of a sig­nif­i­cant movement.

If that is the case, then the next ques­tion is: Will we sim­ply be wit­nesses, on-lookers, or will we be active par­tic­i­pants, able to say: we were there, from the beginning?

Your Pres­by­ter­ian Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Net­work Toolkit

Read the PCJN let­ter to 48 gov­er­nors in response to CAA pro­posed prison pri­va­ti­za­tion. Click here for the CCA let­ter to which PCJN is responding.

ACTION: Share the PCJN press release with your local and national media.

ACTION: Deliver, email, or fax a let­ter, say­ing no to pri­vate pris­ons! Here is a sam­ple: just change the gov­er­nor and state. If you would like a let­ter per­son­al­ized for your state, con­tact Trina Zelle, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of PHEWA, at (602) 796‑7477 or phewainfo@gmail.com.

Read cov­er­age of PCJN’s action and for­ma­tion in The Nashville Scene (CCA is based in Nashville), The Daily Kos, ACLU, and The Pres­by­ter­ian News Ser­vice (see the PNS full arti­cle on the con­fer­ence). 

Read the 2003 Gen­eral Assem­bly Res­o­lu­tion Call­ing for the Abo­li­tion of For-Profit Private Prisons.

Check out the PHEWA resource web­site, where you can find mate­ri­als for Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Sunday.

Want to join the net­work? Con­tact Trina Zelle, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of PHEWA, at (602) 796‑7477 or phewainfo@gmail.com.