46 southern bishops speak out to end for-profit prisons,
set new directions in criminal justice
Father John S. Rausch

In Western Kentucky, after miles of winding narrow road, one rounds a corner and sees a massive prison complex, ringed by razor wire and double fencing, on the edge of an expansive lake. In Southwest Virginia, another prison complex sits atop a mountain with a breathtaking vista that inmates never see. The settings of so many prisons in the South, rural and remote, prompt a meditation on contrasts. Outside the prison walls, the beauty of creation calms the heart and renews the spirit. Inside the prison, few laughs reverberate off the gray bars and concrete walls where a drab existence gets counted daily in anticipation of release or parole.

The Bishops Speak Out
The Catholic bishops of the South recently issued the final installment of an eight-part pastoral message entitled, “The Criminal Justice Process and a Gospel Response.” These 46 bishops are from 12 states in the heart of Mission Land, USA. Their pastoral points out that the South contains the seven states (Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina) with the highest incarceration rates as well as the states that perform more than 80 percent of all executions.

Glenmary Father Les Schmidt, who previously facilitated Appalachian pastorals on powerlessness and sustainability in 1975 and 1995 respectively, plus one on the poultry industry in 2000, is the bishops’ coordinator for this new pastoral. The bishops, Father Les explains, wanted to address criminal justice issues in the South because “the prison population has been escalating to cataclysmic proportions.”

Consider these facts:
• Our nation’s jails and prisons hold over 2 million inmates on any given day.
• 6.6 million people are either on probation, parole or incarcerated (2001 figures).
• the number of women incarcerated has increased 600 percent since 1980.

“Politicians are stressed over the economic costs of prisons,” says Father Les, “while the bishops worry more about the moral and ethical issues.”

This pastoral, released one section at a time each Lent and Advent since 2002, responds to pleas from the Catholic Committee of the South (CCS) that the bishops address this escalating problem. Father Les arranged a meeting in 2002 with several southern bishops and representatives of CCS (including prison ministers, ex-convicts and ordinary citizens) to assess the feasibility of a criminal justice pastoral. After an affirming meeting in the Atlanta airport, Father Les began the process of researching the problem and proposing possible solutions as a first step in developing this pastoral message.

Specific Recommendations
Regarding retribution: The pastoral emphasizes that the defense of human life and dignity constitute the fundamental starting point for all Catholic social teaching. “The most wounded victim and the most callous criminal retain their humanity,” write the bishops. They call for a thorough re-examination of a criminal justice system that currently appears based on retribution.

“Punishment must have the clear purpose of protecting society and rehabilitating those who violate the law,” they write. Their antidote: seek justice not vengeance, and pursue justice with mercy.

Regarding youth: Society’s emphasis on punishment over prevention is particularly inappropriate when responding to juveniles. “We are disturbed by the trend towards trying children under 18 as adults and placing juveniles in prisons with adults,” the pastoral says.

With one in five children in several southern states living in poverty, the bishops note that poverty, discrimination and racism contribute seriously to crime. They recommend society redirect funds from building more prisons to investing in juvenile crime prevention, educational efforts and substance-abuse programs. Mentoring children at risk as a Big Brother or Big Sister can especially engage young people and build their self-esteem, they note.

Regarding women: Women represent another group of offenders whose incarceration has broad social implications. Most incarcerated women are poor and were sentenced as accomplices to crimes committed by their husbands or boyfriends. A significant percentage of them are mothers of minor children, more than 57 percent are victims of severe and prolonged physical and/or sexual abuse, and two-thirds lack a high school diploma or GED.

The bishops write, “Given that most of these women are the sole support of children, the need for job training is even more urgent.”

Regarding for-profit prisons: The bishops express great apprehension about the rise of for-profit private prisons throughout the United States, especially in the South: “When prisoners become units from which profit is derived, there is a tendency to see them as commodities rather than as children of God.”

The bishops note the for-profit prison system operates with predictable characteristics given its profit motive: The industry lobbies for harsher sentencing laws to increase the prison population, and it cuts overhead by reducing the number of prison staff and paying lower wages.

Overcrowding and reduction of services, while good for profits, have resulted in higher incidences of inmate-on-staff assaults and inmate-on-inmate assaults in for-profit prisons. Based in part on the moral obligation of the state to oversee conditions concerning personal freedom, the bishops forthrightly state: “...we call for an end to all for-profit private prisons.”

New Directions: Look to West Virginia
“Prisons, like wars, are public admissions of defeat for humanity,” write the bishops. They seek alternatives to incarceration, especially since only about 30 percent of prisoners are violent offenders. In West Virginia, for example, they cite a project that includes reporting centers where nonincarcerated offenders check in daily, pre-trial home confinement and community service for medium and low-risk offenders.

The bishops encourage broader use of restorative justice that focuses on the victim and the community harmed by the crime. Restorative justice programs bring the victim and offender together in the presence of a mediator. The process helps the offender acknowledge the harm done and promotes rehabilitation through an apology and some appropriate restitution.

Citing the parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15, the bishops remind us, “Ex-offenders are children of God.” With roughly 1,600 prisoners released each day nationally, the bishops encourage parishes to welcome ex-offenders back into society with material and spiritual help, and to prepare for that release through affirming visits months before.

While the bishops’ pastoral suggests a gospel approach to criminal justice, new directions will only come with the political will to change the current system. Father Les, referring to prisons today, grimly summarizes the situation: “They’re out of sight and the ordinary citizen is unaware of this vast expansive system. The whole prison system has become the American gulag.”