Policing/Mass Incarceration

Resources on Mass Incarceration

Why Mass Incarceration Should Matter to Evangelicals
Since 1980, the United States has seen an unprecedented rise in incarceration rates. Our nation’s prison population has quintupled over a 30-year period. The United States currently has the highest incarceration rate and the most prisoners of any country in the world. These incarceration rates, which have run independent of crime rates, are suggested to be the result of policy changes over the last 30 to 35 years. In addition, incarceration rates have been documented to be disproportionately affecting communities of color.  Yet studies routinely show that more prisons and more policing do not reduce crime rates.

Mass incarceration has impact all areas of life, noteably the education system.  In the late 1980s, Schools began to develop “no tolerance” policies for students who did not follow school policies that included expelling and suspending students at higher rates.   These policies were part of a larger trend in which legislators began to focus on punishing rather than rehabilitating criminals through a “get tough on crime” approach. .  Adults began receiving increasingly harsh sentences, particularly for drug offenses as part of the “war on drugs.”   Similarly, the principle behind “no tolerance” is that all school infractions should be treated equally harshly. Thus schools might suspend students for things like swearing, or for vague charges of “willful defiance.”

In both cases, however these “get tough” policies have not been found to be successful in either reducing crime rates or improving student learning.   Many studies have shown that “get tough” policies actually are more likely to increase rather than decrease crime rates. California’s three strikes legislation which imposed mandatory life-sentences for those convicted of three felonies, led to no reduction in murder, rape or robbery rates.

Similarly, the UCLA Civil Rights Project reports that increased suspension rates and expulsion rates do not improve student learning.  Students with one disciplinary action are 3 times more likely to have contact with the juvenile system within a year.  Students with similar achievement profiles who are suspended from school are 5 times more likely to drop out of school.  Suspensions and expulsions do not improve behavior or academic achievement.  School systems that suspend frequently have the lowest academic achievement, even controlling for race and poverty.  According to this report, higher suspension and expulsion rates actually create lower academic achievement.

Suggested Readings

Books:

• Life Sentence, by Charles Colson
• Golden Gulag, by Ruth Wilson Gilmore
• Shane Claiborne, Executing Grace
• The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
• Just Mercy by Bryan Stephenson
• Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis
• The Little Book on Restorative Justice by Howard Zehr
• The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Punishment- Richard Snyder
• The Little Book on Biblical Justice by Christopher Marshall
• International Institute on Restorative Practice the Restorative Practices Handbook
• Redeeming a Prison Society: A Liturgical and Sacramental Response to Mass Incarceration by Amy Levad
• The Heart of Hope (a guide for making peacemaking circles) : Kay Pranis

Articles/Blog Posts:

• Interrupting the School to Prison Pipeline Through Restorative Justice  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fania-e-davis/interrupting-the-school-t_b_8244864.html
• Divine Justice as Restorative Justice https://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php/163072.pdf
• The Biblical Case for Restorative Justice:  https://peacetheology.net/pacifism/biblical-bases-for-restorative-justice/
• This Country Needs a Truth and Reconciliation Process on Violence Against African Americans—Right Now
  http://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/this-country-needs-a-truth-and-reconciliation-process-on-violence-against-african-americans
• From Slavery to Mass Incarceration (Equal Justice Initiative video): https://youtu.be/r4e_djVSag4
• The Moral Failures of America’s Prison Industrial Complex: http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2015/07/criminal-justice-and-mass-incarceration
• Mass Incarceration Since 1492: Native American Encounters With Criminal Injustice: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/34725-mass-incarceration-since-1492-native-american-encounters-with-criminal-injustice
• A Christian Case for ending the War on Drugs: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/current/christian-case-ending-war drugs#HVJmdo5kAJMfVgKK.01
  The Wages of Sin are Prison: http://www.ecclesio.com/2011/06/the-wages-of-sin%E2%80%A6-are-prison-by-elizabeth-m-bounds/
• Christianity and U.S. Prison Abolition: http://marklewistaylor.net/blog/christianity-and-us-prison-abolition-rupturing-a-hegemonic-christian-ideology/
• Jails as Warehouses for the Poor, Ill, and Addicted: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/11/us/jails-have-become-warehouses-for-the-poor-ill-and-addicted-a-report-says.html?_r=1
• Due Process Is Dead: http://thefreethoughtproject.com/due-process-dead-staggering-95-inmates-america-received-trial/

Films/documentaries:

• The House I live In
• Tulia Texas
• American Violet
• Kids For Cash
• 13th