Honestly, I don’t give enough thought to the issue of incarceration. My church hosts a monthly meeting focused on racial reconciliation, and last night this was the topic. I had the chance to hear from a couple where the husband spent 25 years behind bars.
Hearing their story- especially their memories of family visits and raising kids with one parent locked away was pretty powerful. What really stood out to me was when the man started sharing about his own childhood, growing up with a mom who’d been assaulted. These things are totally cycles that get passed from one generation to the next.
It’s a complicated issue, and I’m definitely not an expert in spite of all those Ear Hustle episodes I’ve gone through at the gym. I just know that prison shouldn’t be seen as an easy, out-of-sight solution. Everything that happens to a prisoner after a sentence also has huge impacts, at a generational level.
I think that Jesus was being real deliberate when he noted the way we treat those in prison as equal to the way we treat God.