Prison

We were flipping through the channels as a Dateline that I hadn’t seen was about to start.

Lester Holt (who is a good journalist) was doing a report from an Angola, Louisiana prison cell.

The next hour of television was absolutely horrifying.

Men in prison for decades for crimes committed when they were children.

A 78-year-old man who committed a horrible crime when he was 16.

A field filled with black men picking carrots for 2 cents a day as guards with guns at the ready…

…made me think of slavery.

Men with cancer, their hair falling out, on oxygen, barely able to stand being denied a compassionate release so they can die with a shred of dignity.

There’s zero compassion. No thought as to rehabilitated prisoners.

The 72-year old man, who served 55 years, was denied parole by a board member who said, “I think you need more time with the prison programs.”

How much time does he need?

And I know all the arguments against granting any sort of compassion.

Not minimizing the crimes.

If I were to lose a loved one to a random act of violence…

…but Holt summed it up as he looked in on the man obviously just weeks away from a painful cancer death.

“He’s a human being.”

It was those 4 words that hit my heart.

Yet mass incarceration in this country is big business, and locking up 20% of the world’s prisoners when we are just 5% of the world’s population…

…yeah.

Not working.

A hundred and fifty year sentence on a drug charge?

Six decades in prison for a crime committed by a 16-year old?

Hard to fathom, but compassion is in short supply. I’m willing to wager that if a poll was taken on whether or not MORE people should be put away that’s how America would vote.

It’s too hard to solve the huge problems that produce the criminals.

Lot easier just to dispose of them.

They’re human beings.