Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them;
and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body. Hebrews, Chapter 13, verse 3.
I need to work on being more compassionate to those
who have been imprisoned. It’s easy for
me to sit back in my comfortable house and forget about the plight of others
less fortunate. I can rationalize that
they have made poor choices and have been removed from society as a consequence
for these actions. In reality, I’m not
sure I agree with that philosophy anymore.
Sure, I think rapists, child molesters and mass murders should be kept
from returning to society. Often these
people get released from prison on parole after a certain amount of time and
some therapy, only to rape, molest and kill again. This makes no sense when the prisons are full
of other people who have done much less and may never get out. I just don’t understand.
There are people who are in prison indefinitely for
stealing food or cigarettes, doing stupid pranks and generally making poor
choices. Are these people a threat to
society? I’m sure there are some
sociopaths who pose a threat, but I think there are many prisoners who would be
more help to society on the outside than behind bars.
There is a Bible passage that says: Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to
satisfy his soul when he is hungry; But if he be found, he shall restore
sevenfold; he shall give all the substance of his house. Proverbs, Chapter 6, verses 30-31. God is talking about having him make
restitution rather than imprisoning him.
With our country’s financial situation, we can’t
afford to hire enough people to clean our parks and waterways, assist the aged,
work with the handicapped and provide productive services for the
community. These options would allow
prisoners to maintain their dignity while making restitution at the same
time. It sure beats having people in a
penal system where they are more apt to become corrupted by the quantity of
negative influences they encounter than to be rehabilitated. Many of those imprisoned have the potential
to be productive members of society with some assistance and guidance. (As I said before, I’m not including people
who are rapists, molesters and killers in this category.)
It saddens me to think that there is no real equity
in the penal system. There are people
who were CEO’s for multimillion dollar firms, who embezzled the funds of their
company. Many of their co-workers have
since lost their jobs, their retirements and their livelihoods because of the
impact the embezzlement had on the company’s finances. Often these people don’t go to jail, because
they have enough money to hire expensive attorneys. If they do go to jail, it’s for a short
amount of time in a swanky prison. They
write their memoirs and make a fortune.
It’s sad that the system doesn’t make them make
restitution to all those who lost their retirements. Don’t you think it would be an excellent
logical consequence if they had to take the royalties from their memoirs to pay
for the retirements of those hard workers whose retirement funds had been
embezzled?
Then there are minorities who are imprisoned and are
doing hard time because they didn’t have a ritzy lawyer defending them for
things that pale in comparison. They end
up spending a big portion their lives in prisons that could never compare to
the swanky ones of those who embezzled millions. This just doesn’t seem equitable to me.
I need to remember to keep prisoners in my prayers,
but there may be other things we can do.
There are organizations that we could contact that would tell us ways
that we could help the families of prisoners.
A monumental way we can help is by being willing to hire someone who has
formerly been in prison. How are they
ever going to support their family and become a productive member of society if
no one hires them? We could make a
difference in their lives.
Because this is an example of how I’ve applied this Bible passage to my life, it doesn’t necessarily reflect the whole meaning of the passage.
