Prison

This is a blog that is more confession than admonition. Meaning, I don't know what I think. I just know I need to give it some thought. A lot of thought... and sooner rather than later.

It's about prisons.

One of my dear friends in life, Chuck Colson, gave himself to this after his conversion to Christ. Chuck and I engaged on many levels, but ironically never on this, his foundational missional calling. We talked about church and culture, the seminary for which I was president and he served on the board, and much about various leaders and trends.

But never about where he spent time incarcerated.

I regret that.

More than 2.2 million people are currently incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons, a 500% increase over the past 40 years. Although the United States accounts for about 5% of the world's population, it houses nearly 25% of the world's prison population. The per capita incarceration rate in the U.S. is more than six times the rate of neighboring Canada.

And get this:

840,000, or nearly 40%, of the 2.2 million U.S. prisoners are African American males.

No matter what you may think about such things, no matter your politics, no matter your notions, "the facts remain stubbornly the same."

I don't know the answer.

I don't know the solution.

I only know that,

… we have a problem.

James Emery White

Sources

Jed. S. Rakoff, "Mass Incarceration: The Silence of the Judges," The New York Review of Books, May 21, 2015 issue, read online.