\n\n<\/a>\nOur Lord began his ministry by declaring “release to the\ncaptives…” (Luke 4:18 NRSV), and he distinguished those who would\nreceive a blessing at the last judgment by saying, “I was in prison and\nyou visited me.” (Matthew 25:36b NRSV) Jesus also declared that one\ncannot serve two masters and condemned the idolatry of mammon, or wealth.\n(Luke 16:13).\n
\nChristians, therefore, must have a special concern for those who\nare captive in any way, especially for those who are imprisoned,\nand for the human conditions under which persons are incarcerated.\nIndividual Christians and churches must also oppose those policies and\npractices which reflect greater allegiance to the profit motive than to\npublic safety and to restorative justice for offenders, crime victims,\nand local communities.\n
\nTherefore, The United Methodist Church declares its opposition to\nthe privatization of prisons and jails and to profit making from the\npunishment of human beings.\n
\nADOPTED 2000\n<\/blockquote>\nThe statement has further practical explanation of why this opposition:\n\n\n
\n\n240. Prison Industrial Complex\n
\nInternational attention has been given to the long and rapid rise in\nthe United States prison population over the last 25 years. The United\nStates imprisons a higher proportion of its people than all but one\nother country in the world, Russia. Incarceration has become a very\nexpensive growth industry in the United States.\n
\nThis industry of warehousing people has presented a temptation to\nthose who would profit from the punishment of human beings, leading\nto perhaps the most ominous illustration of prison industrial complex\nat work: the privatization of prison operation and\/or ownership.\nSometimes governments contract with corporations to operate prisons.\nA recent trend is for private corporations to design, build, and own\nprisons to be privately operated and to house prisoners from anywhere\nin the United States or its territories. Often this takes the form of\ncompanies= building prisons on spec, or as speculation, assuming that\nprisoners will be found, somewhere, to fill their beds.\n
\nThere is a long history in the United States especially in the South,\nof exploitation of prison labor through the convict lease system and\nother arrangements whereby private industry has been allowed to have\ncontrol over prisoners= lives. The 13th Amendment to the United States\nConstitution allows for legal exploitation of prisoners. Today, private\nprison entrepreneurs seek areas which have a surplus of prisoners and\nareas of high unemployment which often welcome prisons as a new form\nof economic development. Typically, this means that it tends to be\nthe poor and ethnic minorities who find their labor, their spirits,\nand their lives exploited, whether as the keepers or as the kept.\n
\nPrivate prison companies typically are paid on a per-capita and per-diem\nbasis. Therefore they have little incentive to rehabilitate prisoners\nor to prevent recidivism. Indeed, it is in their economic interest to\nhave more crime, more incarceration, and more recidivism, all of which\nlead to more profits. The logic of the profit motive is to cut costs.\nIn privately operated prisons, this is usually achieved by cutting staff,\npayroll, benefits, supplies, security, and rehabilitation programming\nfor prisoners. Such cuts lead to a decreased sense of professionalism\nand a higher rate of turnover among employees, greater hopelessness and\nbitterness among prisoners, and greater threats to the safety of staff,\nprisoners, and the general public, especially in the local community.\n
\nMany states where private prisons are now operating have no laws\nregulating their operations (including health, safety, security, legal\naccess for prisoners, and disciplinary policies). Many private prisons\nare under no obligation to ensure access to information about prisoners\nheld in them or how they are classified, and often regard this as\nproprietary information. Private prisons hurt local and state economies.\nContracting our operations exports taxpayer monies from local communities\nto corporations often headquartered out of state. For existing prisons,\ncommunities lose public sector jobs with family-supporting wages and\nbenefits, and civil service job security. Local communities which\nprovide supplies, services, or equipment to government agencies lose\nout when a large contractor, usually based out of state, wins a contract\nto operate a former government facility. Finally, when private prisons\ncontract out bed space to prisoners from distant states, it makes it more\ndifficult for families, friends, ministers, attorneys, and advocates to\nvisit them for support, or counsel. This also increases their chances\nof recidivism when they are released.\n<\/blockquote>\nAnd in case that all wasn’t clear enough,\nthe same document, entitled\n\nUM Resolutions Regarding Restoritive Justice and Related Topics<\/a> says:\n
\n\nPolicy\n
\nWe call for:\n
\n§ A renewed church-wide focus on removing the death penalty.\n
\n§ Opposition to privatization of prisons.\n
\n…\n<\/blockquote>\nI think that’s pretty clear.\n
\n-jsq\n
\nPS: This post owed to a conversation with Barbara Stratton.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We already heard from the Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Catholic churches, against private prisons. Now let’s hear from the United Methodist Church: Our Lord began his ministry by declaring “release to the captives…” (Luke 4:18 NRSV), and he distinguished those who would receive a blessing at the last judgment by saying, “I was in prison and […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[97,1113,48,40,14,15,72,21,22,1908,73,3,449,780,178],"tags":[4573,4575,8717,8704,8705,484,8730,4576,75,3335,1297,1188,4574,4572],"class_list":["post-2033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-activism","category-cca","category-code-enforcement","category-community","category-economy","category-education","category-incarceration","category-planning","category-politics","category-religion","category-safety","category-transparency","category-transportation","category-travel","category-vlcia","tag-christian","tag-civil-service","tag-community","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-family","tag-incarceration","tag-jesus","tag-prison","tag-prison-industrial-complex","tag-private-prison","tag-privatization","tag-recidivism","tag-united-methodist-church"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-wN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2033\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}