Christians for the Abolition of Prisons “Proclaim freedom for the prisoners” – Luke 4:18 Christians for the Abolition of Prisons is an organization dedicated to prison abolitionist education and advocacy within the progressive church. We believe that Jesus came to free all who are held captive and establish new forms of justice, free of retribution and within community. As followers of Jesus, we see the abolition of incarceration and the development of community-based restorative justice as a moral imperative and as our particular vocation as the Body of Christ. Abolition is more than “just another progressive cause” of the church. Our support for the liberation of all people – including those who have committed serious crimes – is based directly in the gospel of Jesus Christ: in his life proclaiming freedom to captives and good news to the poor, in his cross that overcomes the human need for retribution for harm done, in his resurrection that burst the bonds of sin and death, and in his ongoing presence in the church community that lives out a new kind of justice. Our theology forms the basis for our moral witness against every form of imprisonment. Jesus stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 4:17-21 (NIV) Why Abolition? Why Christians? Why Abolition? Progressive Christians are often involved in calls for criminal justice or prison reform and are active in prison ministries. Why do we call for the church to go further than that, calling entirely for the abolition of prisons and our prison culture? • “Prison reform” often ends up meaning “more prisons,” despite the best intent of its proponents. After all, prisons were developed as a reform of the criminal justice system that was an improvement over capital punishment. Solitary confinement was developed as a penitential reform by well-meaning Christians in 19th-century Pennsylvania. We have to look further than reform to an entirely new way of thinking about liberation and justice. • Incarceration right now claims to have two purposes: to punish those who have committed crimes, and to rehabilitate them to return them to society. But the two impulses are at odds: the desire to punish leads to ever-worsening conditions of incarceration and the denial of resources like physical and mental health care and education to prisoners, although those are precisely the things that would help prisoners heal and prepare for their release into society. The contradiction is built in to the way prison works, so the system cannot be reformed and must be abolished. • The biblical call for justice is incompatible with punitive incarceration as it is currently practiced. The most important thing for rehabilitating those in prison and preparing them to return to society is fostering their ties with their community, and especially with their families. But prisons are designed to separate prisoners from their communities and families, cutting them off from the very relationships that will help them heal and make amends and learn to live differently. God is the one who seeks out every lost member of the flock to return them to the whole (Matthew 18:12-14). God desires a system of justice that occurs within relationship and results in healed and renewed relationships with the beloved community. Prisons are not that system! Why Christians? Prison abolition is a movement with a long history, but has mostly grown out of secular movements for racial justice and liberation. Christians (especially rich, white Christians) have rarely been public leaders in abolitionist work. Mass incarceration is the continuation of systems of racial control going all the way back to slavery. Just as Christian abolitionists were involved in the fight against slavery, so Christian abolitionists should be involved in the fight against prisons now. We believe that prison abolition is essential work of the church. Beyond every human-rights argument for prison abolition, we believe that Jesus’ call to set the prisoners free compels us to do the same. Jesus reached out to the marginalized and left no one outside the circle of God’s community, so Christians are called to abolish prisons, a force that separates people from community. Christ’s death and resurrection ended the need for retributive justice and made true restorative justice within loving community possible. Who We Are We are… • Christian: Our commitment to prison abolition does not arise only from universal understandings of human rights, but from our specific belief in the revelation of the nature of God through the man Jesus Christ, his death, and his resurrection. • Mainline: We are speaking primarily to the mainline, progressive Christian churches in the US. These are churches that are historically rich, white, and liberal. Mainline Christians have commitments to criminal justice reform as one of various progressive causes—but for the most part have not made the paradigm shift to abolitionism. Recognizing our own privilege, we seek to organize the mainline churches to support work being done on prison abolition by those marginalized groups most affected by mass incarceration. • Intersectional: We recognize that prison abolition is only one aspect of many interconnected struggles for justice in our society, and that our efforts must take into account the complex ways our current criminal justice system affects people at the intersection of their various identities, including race, gender, sexual orientation, and disability. What We Do Abolition is a long-term goal. But our commitment to the abolition of prisons and better forms of justice informs the way we approach immediate policy and prisoner-advocacy work. From an abolitionist perspective, it’s important that our work to reform the current system not lead to retrenching it. From a Christian perspective, it’s essential that our advocacy always show forth the gospel truth that Christ has abolished the need for retribution and that God seeks out all who are lost, to heal in community. Some of our specific policy and advocacy goals: • Abolish the death penalty: We join in longstanding Christian opposition to the death penalty, an act of violence against the image of God in every human being. • Abolish LWOP: Life without parole (LWOP) is another form of death sentence, sentencing people to die in prison. Our faith teaches us that everyone, no matter what they’ve done, can change–think of the apostle Paul and his dramatic conversion after persecuting the church. Parole is a way of recognizing that people change, and that even those who have done great harm should have the chance to return to society. Especially as we fight the death penalty, it’s important that we not give in to reforms that propose LWOP as an alternative to execution and therefore make it harder to advocate for greater access to parole for everyone sentenced to life. God desires that no one should be lost (2 Peter 3:9) so everyone should have the chance to be reincorporated into their community. • Abolish solitary confinement: Solitary confinement that lasts longer than 15 days is torture and does great psychological harm. People incarcerated in solitary confinement can be kept in their cells alone 23 or 24 hours a day, often only allowed recreation alone in an outdoor cage. Prisoners in solitary liken it to being buried alive. In the name of the One who burst from the grave, we call for the immediate end of long-term solitary confinement. • Abolish private prisons: Although the vast majority of prisoners in the US are held in public facilities, private prisons are a particular immorality because of the profit motive. No one should make money from the suffering of another; no one should profit from the caging of a human being. “You cannot serve both God and money” (Matthew 6:24). In this spirit we demand the end of private prisons. • Abolish immigration detention: Immigration detention is prison by another name. But it lacks even the excuse of punishment, as immigrants are being caged because they are immigrants, not as punishment for a crime. In fact, most immigrants in detention are seeking asylum as they flee violence and persecution in their countries of origin. God commands us to “love the foreigner, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:19). In response to this command of hospitality and in the context of brutality against immigrants, we join in the call to end the criminalization of immigration and the caging of immigrants. • Abolish money bail: Over half of all people held in local jails have not been convicted of any crime, but are in jail awaiting trial, often because they cannot afford bail. Not only are those held in jail caged, sometimes for years, without conviction, but being unable to make bail often leads to the loss of jobs and livelihood. And being held pre-trial makes it much harder to prove your innocence. In fact, more than 95% of criminal cases never go to trial but are resolved through plea bargains. If everyone went to trial, the system would be overwhelmed. Pre-trial confinement is a powerful tool prosecutors can use to encourage plea bargains, even from innocent defendants, when a guilty plea can get them out of jail sooner than waiting months or years for a trial.