The Jesus guide to prison reform: Tom Krattenmaker

Who said, “I was in prison, and you came to me”?

It was Jesus, in Matthew 25. And although he meant it rhetorically, as a way of signaling his solidarity with those rotting away in jail, it wouldn’t be long before he was factually a prisoner, too — a death-row pris­oner at that.

If you overlay the behavior and words of Jesus onto the reality of prisons in our time and place, you realize that al­though the United States is, in some ways, a Christian na­tion, it is not a Jesus nation when it comes to our treatment of those who have transgressed.

The Jesus vi­sion for crime and corrections is light-years apart from the vision we implement today. Apart, and superior. Jesus can free us from the prison-industrial complex to which we are all captive, in some shape or form, and from which we all need release.

It costs us dearly to lock up more people than any other country on the planet. There’s a steep cost to our charac­ter as a society, to our collective soul as a nation. There’s a distortion of our priorities and commitments. Then there’s the money. Operating the federal and state prison systems costs a combined $80 billion a year, roughly. The collateral costs — social services, child welfare, and so on — add bil­lions more to the whopping total.

To put the numbers in perspective and discern the story they tell about us, consider this: Eleven states spent more of their general-funds budgets on prisons than on colleges and universities in 2013. The 50 states’ combined spend­ing on their “corrections” systems grew by 141% between 1986 and 2013. The growth in their spending on K-through-12 and higher education: 69% and 6%, respectively.

It seems we have a prison problem. As in, too much prison for too many people.

If we created the kind of just society envisioned by Jesus, far fewer people would suffer the dysfunction and despera­tion and deprivation conducive to crime. A gargantuan task, for sure. But in the meantime, strategies are emerging for working with at-risk young people and returning offenders in smarter ways.

Take, for instance, the strategy for disruptive students being developed by a psychology researcher named Ross Greene. This is not fuzzy, feel-good foolishness revolving around the wondrous magic of hugs. It’s rigorous stuff based on the latest scientific understanding of the human brain.

When kids act up, school personnel employing the Greene method resist the temptation to throw them out of class or adminis­ter other immediate punishments. Instead, they bookmark the incident and, after the fury of the moment, sit down with the student and unpack the situation. Why did he or she suddenly curse out the teacher? Why was it necessary, just then, for him or her to stand up and act out? The next time the impulse arises, what might be a better thing to do? What is going on in the kid’s life or neurology that might be contributing to his or her behavior?

When California woke up to the punitive foolishness of its three-strikes law, which was imprisoning people for life upon a third conviction, no matter how minor the crime, it started releasing some of these lifers. Importantly, encouragingly, the state has found the vast majority of these so-called career criminals are staying straight.

Nevertheless, we stack the decks against ex-offenders. In the past, prisoners could often get an education while they served their time and thus could set themselves up for decent employment after their release. Our more recent policies and growing social hard­ness toward prisoners have conspired to reduce prison edu­cation programs to a precious few.

When it comes to creating adversity for ex-prisoners, we apparently like to pile it on. In many states, even after you’ve done your time and paid your price, you can’t vote, you can’t get educational grants, you can’t get an apartment, you can’t get a driver’s license, and you can’t get a job. You’re told to stay straight and keep yourself out of jail. Then one obstacle after another is thrown in front of you to make the accomplish­ment of that objective all but impossible—as if the system really doesn’t want you to succeed. Is it any wonder that a high percentage of returning citizens end up back in prison?

Buoyed by the Jesus inspiration, following the Jesus way, we can open our minds, hearts, and eyes and look for creative ways to disrupt the prison pipeline. Our sights and imagina­tions can be freed from the current illusion that leads us to think that our only tool for transgressors is the hammer, and that every aspect of the phenomenon is a nail.

Tom Krattenmaker is communications director of the Yale Divinity School and a member of Paste BN’s Board of Contributors. This column is adapted from his new book, Confessions of a Secular Jesus Follower. Listen to Tom read this excerpt here and follow him on Twitter @TKrattenmaker.

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