Cover
story Jubilee in jail A CALL FOR CLEMENCY
By PATRICIA LEFEVERE
Special Report Writer
Repeating his call for a gesture of
clemency as part of the churchs Jubilee for Prisons, Pope
John Paul II celebrated Mass this month at Romes Regina Coeli prison.
The popes visit to the prison followed a call to governments
of the world for a general amnesty for prisoners, even if only a small
reduction in prison terms. The pope urged governments to look anew at
sentencing policies and to see how they can contribute to reduced crime and
rehabilitation of offenders rather than simply serve societys hope for
retribution.
Although the popes message was intended for all nations, it
has particular significance for the United States, where nearly 2 million men
and women are behind bars - 25 percent of the worlds prison population.
U.S. bishops are preparing their own document on prisons. Planned for release
this fall, the document calls for a complete overhaul, not only of the
nations judicial system and prisons, but also of the philosophy that
underlies the nations approach to crime.
John Pauls statement also offered implicit support to
Catholic prison chaplains around the world, who proposed global amnesty for
prisoners during an [September] 1999 meeting in Mexico City. Chaplains generally
welcomed the statement, though a New Zealand priest noted for his work in
criminal justice told NCR the popes statement fell short in its failure
to challenge more aggressively some of the underlying assumptions driving
approaches to crime. It was a missed opportunity, said Fr. Jim
Consedine, to actively engage Jubilee theology and practice.
The pope said prison initiatives for the Jubilee Year should not
be an automatic or purely cosmetic application of acts of clemency,
but should foster genuine renewal of both attitudes and
institutions. He said he hoped signs of sensitivity toward prisoners,
including his own statement, would encourage them to regret the evil
done and lead them to repentance.
Prisoners need opportunities for work and training, for
psychological help and spiritual support, he said. Refusal on the part of
governments to improve prison life should be seen as a signal that
incarceration is a mere act of vengeance on society, one sure to
provoke only hatred in the prisoners themselves.
The pope has declared 2000 a Jubilee Year, a term derived from the
Hebrew Bible that urges declaring a jubilee for justice every 50
years, a period for review and redress of injustices and social inequities.
Coming from a man who was himself the victim of a 1981
assassination attempt and who made a public display of forgiveness to his
attacker, Mehmet Ali Agca, the pontiffs gesture toward prisoners was more
than symbolic.
Bill Quigley, academic dean of Loyola School of Law in New
Orleans, called the statement a profoundly revolutionary document in the
truest sense of the gospel. State legislators and Congressmen have not
conceived of prisoners in these terms for a very long time, Quigley said.
The notion of rehabilitation of prisoners is not even given lip service
in the United States, the lawyer said.
The popes address is wonderfully refreshing,
moving as it does from the notion of justice to justice tempered with mercy and
finally to the responsibility to connect prisoners to families, Quigley said.
These are almost alien concepts here, said Quigley, who cited a
British study estimating a worldwide prison population of 8 million with the
United States accounting for 1.9 million, or nearly 25 percent of the total. An
accurate count of people locked up worldwide is unavailable because many
countries refuse to release such figures.
Stimulating scrutiny
While Quigley expects the document to be criticized and
categorized much as was the U.S. Catholic bishops economic pastoral in
1983, he hopes it will energize Americans to scrutinize the efficiency and
costs of the nations corrections system. More is being spent on prisons
in some states than on education, he said.
Although the pope made no direct mention of the death penalty in
his address, John Paul wrote: Regulations contrary to the dignity and
fundamental rights of the human person should be definitely abolished from
national legislation. Quigley said he hoped that the pope would use the
Jubilee occasion to call for a global moratorium on executions.
St. Joseph Sr. Rita Steinhagen, a specialist in U.S prisons,
welcomed the popes remarks, particularly his recognition of prisons as
places of vengeance and his emphasis on the importance of encouraging contacts
between prisoners and their families. She noted that 70 percent of women in
U.S. prisons are mothers of minor children. Mothers, in addition to losing
their rights as citizens, lose all parenting rights during incarceration. Not
only is this detrimental to children, it is also extremely expensive, she said,
adding that the cost of jailing mothers is $25,000 per year plus an equal or
greater cost of putting their youngsters in foster care.
Studies show that children whose mothers are in jail are five
times more likely to go to prison themselves than those in the general
population.
Steinhagen, a retired medical technologist who advocates on behalf
of clients at the Center for Victims of Torture in Minneapolis, hoped the
popes statement would move Christians to get involved with prisoners,
whether by praying for, listening to, reading with or teaching them. She
pointed to women in prison in Pekin, Ill., who, she said, earn 12 cents an hour
picking up cigarette butts but have no meaningful occupation. Teaching these
women to knit, comforting them or providing a grieving group would be a great
benefit, she said.
The nun took issue, however, with two of the popes remarks.
John Paul wrote: At times prison life runs the risk of depersonalizing
individuals. It always depersonalizes inmates, Steinhagen
said. The pope also wrote that substantial progress has been made in
conforming the penal system both to the dignity of the human person and the
effective maintenance of public order. Steinhagen disagreed when looking
at penal conditions in the United States, which have deteriorated from
rehabilitation to retribution, she said.
Steinhagen said she hoped the nations Catholic bishops would
not delay their promised pastoral on criminal justice. Get it out there
right now, she said, as part of the public debate in the coming election
season. If it were hers to author, she would insist that the document call for
an end to the death penalty and an investigation of human rights abuses in U.S.
prisons, as have been documented recently by Amnesty International.
But the pastoral will probably not surface before the
bishops annual meeting in mid-November, said Dan Misleh, policy adviser
for nonviolence issues in the Office of Domestic Policy of the bishops
conference - the office charged with preparing the letter. When it does appear,
it is unlikely to be significantly changed from the 36-page draft that
circulated to the press and others attending the bishops June meeting in
Milwaukee.
Attention to victims
Misleh said, however, that bishops might incorporate the
popes words and include more on the role of prison chaplains.
Were trying not to write a statement for chaplains or for
ex-offenders, but one that holds all people accountable and pays attention to
victims and to the community affected by crime.
Misleh found much in the popes address that U.S.
bishops have been saying since 1978. That was when the bishops last spoke
as a body about criminal justice, although they have since issued statements on
the culture of violence, violence in the media and the death penalty - all of
which relate to criminal justice, he said.
Of all the issues with which the church deals, its weakest
response is in the area of criminal justice, said Fr. Mike Bryant, chaplain for
20 years at the Washington, D.C., jail. This is not a popular Catholic
issue, he said, noting that the average citizen does not understand
the intensity of the problem.
Our prisons are social trash compactors: We believe that if
you stick everybody together - the medically unhealthy and the mentally ill,
the socially deviant and those with AIDS - that well come out with
something magically different. Well, we do, he noted, pointing to a
recidivism rate that is 70 percent among juveniles, 63 percent among
adults.
If you were in a private business that failed 63 to 70
percent of the time, youd have to go into another business, the
priest said.
But Americans are sabotaging their own society by draining the
coffers of state funds - funds badly needed for education and health
care - and instead appropriating them for more and more places to
warehouse offenders. Weve created a monstrous operation, and
its growing, Bryant said. The collusion of politicians and business
to initiate prisons for profit is little short of the reinvention
of legalized slavery, he said.
For Catholics to advocate for penal reforms will require a
powerful and prophetic effort on the part of the bishops in their role as
teachers. Theyve got to step up to the plate and use their moral
authority here, said Bryant, a pastoral counselor who wrote his doctoral
thesis on Catholic attitudes toward criminal offenders. The priest believes
that Catholics will advocate for greater hand gun control, more drug and
alcohol rehabilitation programs and greater financial outlays for education in
prison if the bishops make a strong case for justice and mercy.
Fr. Jim Consedines disappointment with the document came
less from what it said than what it failed to say. There is no
understanding of who is in prison (mainly the poor), why they are there
(largely from offenses that flow from poverty or drug abuse) or of the
prison-industrial complex, which makes enormous profits out of prisons and has
a demonic life of its own, he said. There is no recognition of the
huge amount of crime committed by corporate bodies and governments, which is
rarely punished by imprisonment. There is no mention of the victims of crime
and how ignored they are in criminal justice processes.
Message falls short
Consedine, who gave the keynote address late last year in Mexico
City at a meeting of 150 Catholic prison chaplains from 55 nations (NCR, Dec.
31, 1999/Jan.7, 2000) has been a prison chaplain in New Zealand more than 25
years and is a priest of the Christchurch diocese. The priest said the
popes message fell far short of recommendations made in Mexico City for
the Jubilee. There chaplains had urged a global amnesty for women prisoners
with dependent children and called for the release of inmates serving less than
12 months.
Although Consedine was grateful that John Paul called for the
revision of prison structures, the protection of religious freedom and the care
of the sick in prison, he found the popes statement assuming that prisons
are normal and that everyone in them deserves to be there. Neither
assumption is correct, Consedine said. Prisons are an affront to
human dignity by their very nature. They are places of violence and
denigration. Because they tend to crush peoples lives and destroy
families, they are an affront to the dignity Christ won for us on Calvary and
through the resurrection.
Acknowledging that some people have to be detained to protect the
common good and the publics safety, the priest said that the vast
majority of the worlds 8 million inmates are jailed for offenses
that could be dealt with in more productive, alternative, nonviolent
ways. As examples, he pointed to victim/offender facilitation; to drug,
alcohol or violence rehabilitation centers; to supervised probation; and
community service. Huge vested interests prevent their widespread
implementation, the priest said. Sadly, the papal statement also
ignores these options.
As good as the popes statement is or as well-written as the
bishops pastoral might be, theological fluff is not going to cut
it, said Deacan Doots Dufour, director of Criminal Justice Ministry for
the Austin, Texas, diocese. He argued for logic and reasoning.
People must understand who goes to prison, how they got there and
what can be done about it before theyll work for reform of the criminal
justice system. Its a community problem, said Dufour, who has
helped design mentoring programs so that adults can help and stay connected to
youths who might otherwise end up in jail.
It ought to be impossible for politicians to ignore whats
in the popes address, said Malcolm Young, executive director of the
Sentencing Project, a nonprofit group in Washington that promotes alternatives
to incarceration. This is from a man who was shot, a man who has seen
more pain and suffering than most people and who has pardoned his
offender. But, he lamented, they will do it. They will ignore
it.
National Catholic Reporter, July 28,
2000 [corrected 08/11/2000]
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