The Coveted Commandment: LET MY PEOPLE GO 2014 B.H.R. © 2013 by Wayne Dan Lewis, Sr.

Housekeeping

In this post, I will be discussing how the enforcement of drug laws may play more of a destructive role in our communities and families than improving crime. I am using as a point of reference, a Biblical passage from the 1^st to the 20^th Chapter of Exodus in which Moses and his brother, Aaron, confront the Pharaoh of Egypt, who held the Children of Israel in captivity as slaves.[1]

Additionally, I use these Biblical passages as a point of reference not only because of my own Christian upbringing, but also because of our nation’s supposed Christian values upon which we rely on not only personally, but apparently, politically. And as much as we are quick to say that we shouldn’t mix politics and religion, it is a message that is often overlooked, if not ignored, very much.

The overall focal point will be to contrast the warehousing of our sons and daughters who are otherwise able-bodied and capable of producing taxes, raising their families, and contributing to the overall community. This, in contrast to the subsequent none -producing, and perhaps destructive individuals for whom our law enforcement community have to defend against weapons of a trade that rarely take prisoners, and leaves behind casualties that are all too often are becoming innocent children. Is this post a quantum leap? No! Not at all. And the sooner we come to grips with what warehousing our sons and daughters is doing to our country, the sooner we can turn around the ever-growing problem of loosing a generation to incarceration. My question here is, why do we, as a nation, warehouse people? Call it the Criminal Justice System if you will, but it is warehousing. Or even better yet, it is the abortion of the living, all in a supposed effort to win the war on drugs.

What I hope to draw attention to here is the point of looking at how, as a Christian nation, one that is against the aborting of the unborn even in the case of rape or incest,[2] is all about aborting the living by sentencing our sons and daughters for an extensive amount of time at taxpayer dollars, and then, will complain of a deficit in our nation’s economy. Why, to a person with the limited intelligence that I possess, does this not make sense?

Last, but not least, I will try to challenge our nation, from my position of obscurity, to look into the future on two fronts: Christianity and economics. Can the two be in tandem, or should they not be mixed either? The Christianity part is in preparation for the return of Jesus Christ.[3] For Christians, this should be nothing new. For according to the Bible, it is said that He shall return like a thief in the night, to judge the quick and the dead. And if that is so for Christians, shouldn’t we be thinking about the souls of our sons and daughters committed to the devil by mass incarceration? Shouldn’t we also be thinking about our own souls where we have committed so many young peoples’ lives to imprisonment more for the sake of the dollar rather than for the sake of rehabilitation?

If not Christianity, what about the true economics of locking up our sons and daughters for an extended period of time in the name of, dare I say, JUSTICE? Is it justice to lock someone up for a crime whose punishments creates crime in itself? Is it justice to warehouse citizens who, but for the laws of incarceration, focus more on warehousing than rehabilitation? Or, is it worth weighing out the economics of warehousing men and women, sons and daughters, fathers and mothers when the overall benefit is taxpayer benefits to corporate entities, who will stop at nothing to ensure locking up our sons and daughters under the pretense of suppressing crime?

Will I arrive at my point in this one post? I doubt it. If you have read my posts before, I spoke of mass incarceration for profit in America. (See Incarceration in America- Motive: Profit © 2013 by Wayne Dan Lewis, Sr. The Coveted Commandment Blog)[4]

The earlier post could be considered a prerequisite of this message, but then again, this is another aspect of incarceration that needs to be looked at as well. The issue of literally locking up our sons and daughters as though they have no value because of their decision to do drugs seems extremely inhumane, for a reportedly civilized society. Profit, notwithstanding, will always be the impetus for incarceration, without a doubt.

Crime in just about every other area of the American Criminal Justice system is down, but arrests are up for drugs. And as well, so are incarceration rates. As a society, we have gotten away from focusing on reducing crime, to creating crime through laws that imprison our sons and daughters, extensively, for profit. But that’s okay, we are a Christian Nation.

What we as citizens and Christians may ultimately be forced to do, is to look at the sustainability of long term incarceration. We may, sooner than later, come to our senses as either taxpayers or Christians, if not both, and realize that the lives incarcerated for the unimaginable and unreasonable amount of time sentenced, will eventually result in a higher rate of recidivism (meaning new crimes) for far worse than drugs, and/or an increased burden on our budgets (local, state and national) because we refuse to provide long treatment for the drugs that our sons and daughters are exposed to. I further submit that we would much rather allow drugs to be the impetus of laws that we use to breakup families, rather than focus on reducing drugs’ infiltration into our communities. Therefore, we arrest, convict, incarcerate and continue to allow our tax dollars to be used wantonly without so much as a filter on the significance of dollars used on the poor.

Here are some short facts that we are aware of regarding drugs and incarceration:

© From the website: http://famm.org/affected-families/drug-sentencing [5]: (1986)[6] Congress enacted mandatory minimum sentencing laws to catch drug “kingpins” and deter drug sales and use. But the laws undermine the American tradition of justice by preventing judges from fitting the punishment to the individual’s role in the offense. Because of mandatory sentencing laws, the population of federal prisons has soared and they are filled with low-level, nonviolent drug law violators – not the “kingpins” mandatory sentences intended to apprehend.

© In an April, 2013 article by Matt Sledge of the Huffington Post, entitled Mass Incarceration by the Number http://famm.org/affected-families/drug-sentencing/rs, he writes: “More than half of federal prisoners are incarcerated for drug crimes in 2010, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, and that number has only just dipped below 50 percent in 2011. Despite more relaxed attitudes among the public at large toward non-violent offenses like marijuana use, the number of people in federal prison for drug offenses spiked from 74,276 in 2000 to 97,472 in 2010, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.” [7]

© From the website drugwarfacts.org: (Penalties Imposed in Federal Cases with Mandatory Minimum Sentences, FY2010) "The most frequently reported drug mandatory minimum penalty in fiscal year 2010 was ten years. In fiscal year 2010, almost half of all drug offenders (48.7%, n=7,716) were convicted of an offense carrying a ten-year mandatory minimum penalty. The second most frequently reported drug mandatory minimum penalty was five years (42.4%, n=6,711). Drug offenses involving a conviction of a statute carrying either a mandatory penalty of 20 years (n=692) or one of life (n=153) accounted for a small proportion (5.3%) of all drug offenses involving a conviction of a statute carrying a mandatory minimum penalty."[8]

From the above facts, we know that drugs are dealt with as perversely as any other crimes against persons, or even property crimes. Why is that? Is it that the possession of drugs is equally as volatile? Maybe now more than ever. Drugs weren’t always this problematic. Or, is it the economic benefit to be derived from locking up those who are least likely to be able to defend themselves financially against our various limitless Criminal Justice Systems? Food for thought?

Drug War makes less sense than drug laws

In a piece written by By David Gerhold of the Iowa State Daily (david.gerhold@iowastatedaily.com), he shares how two speakers, at the Memorial Union, defended legalizing drugs. This is a summary of what David pulled from the speakers, a lawyer and a professor. They concluded:

© Smoking marijuana has medicinal benefits, but it also affects our cognitive abilities. That is, if we drive after smoking marijuana, the outcome could be dangerous. ( paraphrasing- Martin Acerbo, Professor of Psychology)[9]

© “The war on drugs has been going on for over 40 years, millions of dollars have been spent and yet the situation is worse than ever,” Leininger said. “It is easier to get drugs than ever before. And if the government can’t even keep drugs out of prisons, how on earth can they keep it out of our society?" (quoting Brian Leininger, criminal defense lawyer of Kansas City, Kan. He spoke on behalf of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, also known as LEAP, an organization mostly consisting of police officers and former prosecutors, whose main goal is to legalize drugs.)[10]

In another report, written by Khynna Kuprian, staff writer for the Bennington Banner, we find that prison inmates are being transferred between states such as Vermont, Kentucky, Idaho, California and Hawaii, to name a few, to ease prison overcrowding. That overcrowding seems to be made up of primarily inmates convicted of drug crimes. Kuprian quotes Holly Kirby of Grassroots Leadership, a 33-year old national social justice organization, who estimated in her report "Locked Up and Shipped Away" that a combined total of $320 million would be spent this year (2013) by California, Hawaii, Idaho and Vermont, to send their inmates between 450 and 3,000 miles from home. [11]

Kuprian later quotes in her article, Vermont State Rep. Suzi Wizowaty (D-Burlington), who suggested as follows:

…( increase) the use of alternatives to prison by utilizing and increasing community-based programs including referral and treatment options. "We need to end the war on drugs and realize it is a public health issue, like alcoholism, not a crime," said Wizowaty, who would like to see an end to the state's contract with CCA (Corrections Corporation of America). "We need to change the rules of probation and parole, so we are not setting people up for failure." [12]

Rehabilitation?

It is hard to conclude that if you lock up one person, or 1 million people for their failure to follow the laws on drug use, possession, distribution and or sale for 10 years, that the outcome will be that they will change their ways. It is further difficult to believe that 10 years behind bars, for example, is equal to the commission of the crime. How does one equate time and punishment with rehabilitation? What is that formula? What component of the violation equates to taking a man or woman from out of society, where drugs are flushed into even the poorest communities, and then, imprison the alleged violators for violating a law that punishes the low level users/distributors or possessors more than those who brought the drugs into the communities?

And what about those drugs laws? How were they conceived? Or, how were they contrived? That a man, who is more often than not, seeking a way to survive, sells drugs, in violation of the law, and then, with no means of defending himself against a limitless judicial system, backed by taxpayer dollars, becomes an incremental part of that system? The end result is apparent, if not intentional. Rehabilitation is certainly not in line with the overall intent if incarceration is the optimal mission. There are economic minds at work, and the more laws that can be contrived to imprison, even the poorest among us, who are not committing murders, rapes, or other crimes at an economically appreciable rate, but who are otherwise good for exploiting under the guise of reducing crime via drugs. Is this in keeping with the Christian values of America?

What’s Christianity got to do with it?

Christianity in a country that swears by God, and celebrates Christmas[13] and Easter [14] would seem to play an exceptional role in protecting our sons and daughters from a life of drugs, if not prison. From a Christian standpoint, seemingly, if we are true Christians, it would appear that our sons and daughters, caught up by the drug trade would be best protected if first, and foremost, their positions in the community as taxpayers, aren’t sabotaged because they were caught up in the drug trade in the first place. Such an impact can be determined to be equally negligible to that of those who are caught up in the alcoholic trade. (Note the emphasis on “trade” vis a vie- economic benefit). That’s not to say that people who do drugs don’t have jobs, but if they do have jobs, they do not have to be cast out of society because they were jailed for 2 or 3 weeks because of excessive bail, or imprisoned for an extended period of time, costing them their overall value to the community. How Christianly is that?

Christianity would suggest that Christians shouldn’t be doing drugs in the first place. But Christianity would also suggest that Christians shouldn’t be lying, cheating, committing adultery, swearing, stealing and killing as well, but many of us seem to have a lock on those crimes societal ills and, we still proudly call ourselves, Christians. Why the big deal here?

Many of us are watching our communities get destroyed by drugs. That is unmistakable, and somewhat, unforgivable. But drugs, unlike many of the other vices we just named, has an economic benefit that seemingly surpasses being a Christian. It would seem that drugs serve the purpose of, however unintended, or however consequential, of providing an economic outlet for the rich. And we know that the rich are Christians as well. We know the rich are greatly involved by the way our Christian views are often at the table for anti-abortion, for which there is no wiggle room on abortion, even in the event of incest or rape, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Roe V. Wade.[15]

Basically, our values as Christians have become blurred. We don’t want the unborn to be murdered in their mother’s wombs, but we can turn a blind eye to incarceration of able-bodied men and women for an economically-contrived crime: drugs. There is no doubt that the drugs, whether illegal, or taken recreationally, are bad for us. But so is alcohol and cigarettes. Those are regulated, and still, there is something to be said for the effects of either on the body and the mind. But drugs have yet to rise, or fall, if you will, to the level of these products where the laws can be re-visited, and those incarcerated, or arrested, can be let go for treatment rather than imprisoned.

Let My People Go 2014 B.H.R

As I indicated earlier, my inspiration for this piece comes from Exodus, 1st-20^th Chapter of the Bible. Moses, as it is recorded, was empowered by God to call on the Pharaoh of Egypt to release the Children of Israel. We know the rest from there (Red Sea, 10 Commandments, Promised Land, yada,yada, yada). But there is no Moses here. God has not spoken to me. If He has, I have dismissed Him as I have done the other voices inside my head. But what I haven’t dismissed is the seriousness of locking people up, in this so-called civilized society. Or, in this so-called, Christian nation. A nation that is, theoretically, under ‘One God!’; ‘Indivisible!’ ‘With Liberty and Justice for all!’[16] finds that it can, without exception, imprison (without shame), and a straight face to the world those who are, for the most part, are as much victims of a Criminal Justice System as they are perpetrators of the laws written to imprison them. But that can change, if America wants it to. How? 2014 B.H.R. Or, 2014, Before His Return.

Had I indicated 2014 A.D[17] indicating after the death (of Christ), there would be no reason to take this plea seriously. It is the calendar that we have used for over 2000 years. After 2000 years, Christ is now smoke and mirrors to the masses, and it is plain to see that we have become less than compassionate towards our fellowman. It is plain to also see that as a country, we have become even less than forthcoming about providing justice to one and all because Jesus hasn’t returned in 2000 years. He probably in another galaxy, having latte with Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. To hell with justice or any semblance thereof. The fact that it has been over 2000 years, we are virtually justified in being desensitized to the rights of others, especially for the benefit of the dollar.

But, and that’s a big but, if we are a Christian nation, and we are about redemption, then it would be in our best interest if we would open the prison doors and release those from captivity, those who have been unjustly punished for laws that have no more than satisfied an economic and corporate hunger. If this is the country that continues to speak of its Christian values, believing in Christ, Himself, then this country believes that Christ will return, as suggested by the Bible. In that context, 2014 suggests that before Christ returns, that laws are willing to be re-written, that men and women are set free from the prisons that were initially intended for murderers, rapists, child molesters, and robbers. Let go of those whose basic crime was to be ideally included in corporate plans to infiltrate poor neighborhoods, carve out an approach to arrest, convict and imprison unjustly, indiscriminately and extensively those who are least able to defend themselves against a Criminal Justice System motivated by profit, not reducing crime.

Before He Returns, possibly in 2014, and I doubt if anyone has anything to disprove to the contrary, it would not be beyond unreasonable for Police Departments, City Council members, state and federal lawmakers, or the Justice Department to rethink incarcerating each and every citizen on laws that too, need to be changed to reflect treatment, not incarceration. Treatment, not destruction of families; Treatment, not reducing able-bodied people to revolving door criminals. Before He Returns, whether in 2014 or beyond, it is imperative that we return to the true value of Christianity that embraces our citizens, not make them pawns in an economic attempt to satisfy corporate greed. Can we do that beginning 2014, B.H.R.? I believe that we can make that change, starting now.