Posted on 05/25/2006 6:51:03 AM PDT by Mr. Silverback
Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley.
When Joe’s dad went to prison, Joe went to prison too—a prison of shame and anger. Responding to his father’s incarceration, Joe fought, drank, and smoked dope. And while Joe’s prison was figurative, he was on a path leading to a real prison with bars and barbed wire.
Joe is not a unique case. As a recent article in the National Journal claimed, “The next generation of prisoners is going to come from the current generation of prisoners.”
Sadly, society stands idly by as the children of prisoners become the unintentional casualties of the “war on crime.” With more than 2.3 million individuals currently behind bars in America, our incarceration rate quadruples that of previous decades. And the children of these prisoners are five to seven times more likely than the average child to end up in prison one day. Even more shocking, the American Correctional Association concluded that 52 percent of female juvenile offenders had an incarcerated parent.
Tragically, intergenerational punishment extends even beyond the United States.
On a recent trip to Bolivia, I had the opportunity to visit San Pedro prison in La Paz. As I watched throngs of prisoners shove each other out of the way for their daily bowl of gruel, I noticed a little girl with matted hair and grubby face lift up her own bowl among the ranks of hardened criminals. Although innocent of any crime, she had no other choice but to join her parents behind bars.
She doesn’t deserve prison. And neither do the 2 million American children with an incarcerated parent. But that’s exactly where we will send them one day if we do not begin to reform the criminal justice system.
We must reevaluate who we lock up, why we lock them up, and how we lock them up. Prisons are for people we are afraid of, not mad at. In other words, prisons are for dangerous offenders who pose a threat to society. We need to challenge “three-strikes-and-you’re-out” laws and mandatory minimum sentencing, responsible for filling 60 percent of our federal prisons with drug offenders, many of whom have no prior criminal record for a violent offense and many of whom are not drug dealers. On top of that, we need to consider the ramifications of separating families by incarcerating prisoners far from their homes.
But we can do more than influence public policy. Jesus said in Matthew 18:5 that “whoever welcomes a little child like this in My name welcomes Me.” The Church has always heeded the call to care for at-risk children—forgotten children. And these children are the most at-risk and forgotten children in America. God has a bias toward those who do not have advocates. As His followers, we should too.
Thanks to a caring Prison Fellowship mentor and a local church, Joe has embraced Christ and now spends his free time participating in mission trips and playing football with friends from the church youth group. Through Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree program, we have watched thousands of children of prisoners like Joe escape the vicious cycle of crime and come to Christ.
Would you consider helping us reach the unintended casualties of the war on crime? Help us by mentoring a prisoner’s child or buying a child a Christmas gift on behalf of their incarcerated parent. Help us to send a child to a week of Christian summer camping. Call us at BreakPoint (1-877-322-5527), and we’ll tell you how you can help and make a difference.
This is part seven in the “War on the Weak” series.
I read them, you mopped the floor with the libertarians.
I asked you how someone merely possessing drugs harmed you, and your response was "1. One of them stuck a 9mm in my face" which isn't drug possession, it's armed robbery. So either you can't tell them apart, or you can't comprehend my question. Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I went for the former. Is there a third alternative?
You have repeatedly cited violent crimes in response to my questions about otherwise peaceable drug use, much as Million Moms will talk about school shootings and "blood in the streets" when people ask about gun ownership or carry permits, etc.
I'll try one more time: How are you harmed by someone else possessing and using drugs? For the sake of argument, assume they grew their own - which is something I have stipulated before as well.
big·ot
n.
One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ. source
It's not a "silly tactic" it's merely a statement of truth. Given how you even use the words in the dictionary.com definition, I don't expect you to run and hide - I expect you to wear the badge of bigotry proudly. You're a bigot, and you're proud of it. Celebrate it!
"otherwise peaceable drug user" is a term assuming facts not in evidence. Indeed, contrary to all my personal experience and public crime statistics.
What harm does an "otherwise peaceable Peeping Tom" do? If the women who are being watched don't know, then there is no harm done right?
Its exactly the same as the speed limit analogy you won't answer. By your logic, if I don't cause an accident, I should be immune from the speed limit regulations. Tell me what harm an "otherwise safe driver" is doing when he is speeding?
So you are bigoted against law and order? Isn't it enough that you want to destroy society, do you have to attack the language as well?
You are no better at language than physics. I'm tolerating you quite well. I haven't had you imprisoned, caned, or forced to wear a dunce cap. That's tolerance.
You have confused "tolerance" with "acceptance". Intolerance would be whining to the moderator to have you removed for being so wrong. I'm happy to allow you to spout your drivel and swat it about like a whipped pup.
Better hit that definition website again.
see my #109 ;)
So to make these poor, abused women whole again, your solution is to destroy their business, and violently deprive them and their customers of rights. Nice. So they get it once in their childhood, and once again from you. I'm glad you want to make the world such a better place.
I'm starting to think you can't comprehend. I never said that I supported speed limits, in fact, I stated they were openly admitted to be mere revenue enhancement. Instead, I mentioned reckless driving once, and "excessive speeding" once, both of which should be up to the police and/or judges to determine on a case-by-case basis under the prevailing conditions of traffic and weather.
There's a difference between pro-drug and anti-prohibition, which however might be too subtle for you to discern.
So you prefer subjective rule by a few to uniform laws. Well that indeed is an answer. An incredibly unworkable idea full of selective enforcement and unknowable limits, but an answer. You shouldn't be allowed to run a taco stand, let alone set the laws of the land.
Is the sky blue in your world?
Its to ensure that there are fewer hell holes to swallow them up. What a twisted view of the world you have. How do you help the homeless, take them your slop bucket?
Started out that you thought that this was a bad analogy. I guess now you are feeling pressured into trying to be consistent. Luckily, you took the bait, but that's the point of analogies, it forces a person to admit the errors of their logic OR in your case, make really absurd assertions in order to be consistent. You did a fine job so far.
What other violations should be left up to a policeman and a judge to decide on a case-by-case basis?
I still can't believe you are actually advocating breaking the country up into legal fiefdoms. You whine that the laws on pot smoking and speeding just exist to harass people, and then you want to reinstate the Sheriff of Nottingham system. I'll take a uniform law that applies to everyone equally. I forget does that make me a tyrant or a bigot in your world?
Truly now, is the sky blue there?
Not too subtle, too inane and escapist. Like not being pro-stupid, just anti-learning.
Are you asserting that a woman that's been abused deserves a life of prostitution? Or is it that you think they aren't capable of doing anything else?
And what of those customer rights you mention? How exactly would you define that? Perhaps "the right to continue the degradation of the abused and traumatized in order to have an orgasm"? Yea, that's catchy, I'd go with that if I were you. It should prove even more popular than your "right to be a worthless burden and menace to society" and your now popular "right to speed, except where a policeman deams it not a right based on his subjective view at the time".
Perhaps less than you think.
Unless you can come up with an objective measure for "danger to society" or "fried brain" then I think you're on thin ice, at least as far as a free society based on individual rights and limited government is concerned.
One cop making an on the spot determination should be OK right? As that's what you think should replace silly things like uniform speed limits.
You're digging yourself even deeper, LOL! I suggest you stop soon. Energy which has the "potential" to do harm doesn't make it "potential energy," which has a specific scientific meaning.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica: (Or is that just another random internet source to you?)
Potential Energy:Energy stored by an object by virtue of its position.
For example, an object raised above the ground acquires potential energy equal to the work done against the force of gravity; the energy is released as kinetic energy when it falls back to the ground. Similarly, a stretched spring has stored potential energy that is released when the spring is returned to its unstretched state. Other forms of potential energy include electrical potential energy, chemical energy, and nuclear energy. source
Kinetic Energy
Form of energy that an object has by reason of its motion.
The kind of motion may be translation (motion along a path from one place to another), rotation about an axis, vibration, or any combination of motions. The total kinetic energy of a body or system is equal to the sum of the kinetic energies resulting from each type of motion. The kinetic energy of an object depends on its mass and velocity. For instance, the amount of kinetic energy KE of an object in translational motion is equal to one-half the product of its mass m and the square of its velocity v, or KE = 1/2mv2, provided the speed is low relative to the speed of light. At higher speeds, relativity changes the relationship. source
That's really rich given it was in reply to your "elementary school "comment.
I don't know about you, but I learned the difference between potential energy and kinetic energy before high school. Come to think of it, I guess you still haven't learned it - and the way things are going, you might never.
[Then again, pompous, ignorant people are just the sorts to force their ideas upon others at government gunpoint - and say they're doing it for their own good.] Besides being stupid, that's a completely non sequitur statement.
Not at all - you are simply mistaken about "potential energy" (ignorant) but you won't admit it (pompous), and yet you want to control the way others lead their lives. It couldn't be more apropos.
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