Mardi Tindal
Moderator Mardi Tindal's blog: God's justice
Posted on: 01/27/2011 11:48
Many of us are praying the lectionary scriptures for this Sunday. So when I opened today’s newspaper to see stories about prisons, mental health, and what actually makes communities safer, Micah’s words leapt off the page: “…and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)
As a volunteer with the Court Worker Program of the Elizabeth Fry Society, I learned a lot about justice, kindness, and humility. I think most Canadians assume, as I had, that our justice system does operate with justice at its heart. I had my eyes opened to the constant struggle and compromise that instead make up the system.
Elizabeth Fry’s programs in support of women in conflict with the law help women deal with root causes of offences such as shoplifting, for instance, and in this way help the courts ensure that prison doesn’t become part of an ongoing cycle. I could tell you many stories of women’s lives turned around, enabling them to return to their community to care for their families, others, and themselves in healthy ways. As Lorraine Berzins of the Church Council on Justice and Corrections said at a Winnipeg luncheon I attended last fall, putting our tax dollars into such programs makes our communities safer and keeps the cost of crime lower. Taking our tax dollars out of such programs to build prisons and incarcerate more people leads to less community health and safety.
Perhaps Micah was onto something when he put justice, kindness, and humility together.
Humility requires that we set aside our preconceptions long enough to learn. In this case, we learn that laws to end conditional sentencing, impose mandatory minimum prison terms for non-violent offences, and prevent early parole actually make our streets more dangerous and drain tax dollars from programs that make them safer.
Christians throughout Canada are calling on the federal government to halt legislation that is expected to dramatically increase the number of inmates and require billions of dollars for building prisons. You can read more of today’s news on The Globe and Mail website.
Community safety and global peace-making have some things in common, including the importance of ensuring that government decisions are based on sound research. So it wasn’t surprising to see the Governor General honour Ernie Regehr with the Pearson Peace Medal last Friday. For decades, Ernie has provided reliable research (through Project Ploughshares) to the international peace-making community, leading to Canadian laws and strategies that actually have a chance of contributing more to peace than to war.
Like Lorraine, Ernie has acted out of a faith nurtured by Micah.
Let’s take our own integrity seriously as people of faith, learning the facts with humility, and speaking of justice, kindness, and humility with courage to our governmental leaders. We will act with hope that this can lead to Canadian laws based on evidence, which will contribute to local community safety. We will give evidence of the integrity of our souls, communities, and God’s world.
How do you see yourself contributing to God’s healing of soul and community in light of today’s news and God’s call through Micah?
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Comments
Mardi Tindal
Posted on: 01/31/2011 14:56
I've been moved by email response to this posting, from family who have sought help with mental illness on behalf of their loved one, to be told that help would be provided only after an arrest.
The United Church of Canada's letter to the Prime Minister about this includes: 78% of inmates are non-violent and at least half haven’t even been convicted. Many repeat offenders are mentally ill and/or addicted, with the majority not classified as high risk. Why is the solution imprisonment? These offenders require treatment, health services, educational, employment and housing interventions, all less expensive and more humane than incarceration...
Mardi Tindal
Posted on: 02/11/2011 09:39
A moving email response to this posting included a powerful story about a young adult son who struggles with mental illness. This is but a small yet telling part of this story, a story of sentencing and prison presented as a solution, when treatment is what's needed:
As Sam's behavior became more and more alarming, the police would search for him and bring him home to us, but they also on one occassion fined him. Obviously he was not in a position to pay fines. He had no money and no way to hold down a job. We were told we could not force him into treatment, because he was over 16, and we would have to wait for him to commit a crime. We argued the ridiculousness of practically insuring a young person with mental illness obtain a criminal record that would stay with him forever. We do have a mental health unit on our police force but they are understaffed. Sometimes the officers coming to our door were trained, sometimes not.
ggarlough
Posted on: 02/14/2011 20:11
The issue of justice gets badly distorted by politics. Recently, my riding MP (Conservative) sent a questionnaire ..... how can we (Harper government) spend our money better?
My reply suggested that the extra $Billions budgeted in cost of prisons over the next few years would be much better used by abandoning the "Tough on Crime" agenda and spending half the 'savings' - est $1 B yearly -on rehabilitation measures for existing prisons and saving the other $1B for things like mental health, social services,poverty reduction..... towards crime prevention. After all, crime rates, year-to-year and over a decade, are in a steady decline.
I also suggested that the Harper decision to close the Prison Farm system for moderate, minimum security people in the system was a serious loss as that system where men work with livestock and crop production was very successful in the life changes it brought to many offenders - citing my personal experience in following a friend through that system a decade ago.
In his reply, received to-day,he states that a major reason for closing the "farm" system was that it cost more to manage than the income produced from its products.
Does the present Government of Canada really believe that a negative financial outcome is a reason to assume that the prison farm system was a failure?
Really!!
As a taxpayer, it is disturbing to see huge budget allotments going a retributive justice program in the name of "law and order".
It is as well, a perversion of the Christ message - treat your neighbour as you would expect to be treated by others - by a government whose leader portrays his principles as 'christian'!
gg