 Commissioners vote to ban for-profit private prisons By John H. Adams The Layman Online Friday, May 30, 2003
The commissioners to the 215th General Assembly voted 361-139 Friday to get some of the denomination's political arms – including the Washington Office – to mount campaigns against private prisons. The Washington Office, which aligns with the most liberal constituency in Congress, has generally been ineffective in its promoting its political agenda. The notion of any corporation making money off the incarceration of prisoners seemed un-Christian to a number of commissioners, but none cited chapter and verse. Instead, supporters of the opposition to private prisons accepted without criticism a study by the PCUSA's Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy. The General Assembly approved ACSWP's 22 page study of private prisons and its four-page recommendation. The recommendation essentially called on Presbyterians at all levels – from the pews to the top offices of the denomination - to aggressively oppose privately-run prisons. The ACSWP study and the opponents of private-run prisons suggested that state and federal governments are more qualified and less punitive in the way they operate prisons – in fact, more moral. "Our information is that, for-profit private prisons focus on the bottom line – that is, the least amount of money," said the Rev. Keith Paige of Baltimore, moderator of the National Issues Committee that recommended the action that the full assembly took. "I order to do that, prisoners are sacrificed." Paige contended – without pointing to evidence – that courts extend time "simply because prisoners are going to these for-profit prisons." But Commissioner Tom Myrick, an elder from the Presbytery of the Pines who is retired after a 30-year career in criminal justice, said the ACSWP report was skewed. "I feel we're in danger of grievous error in generalizing on this subject. There are some terrible state institutions; possibly, there are some terrible commercial institutions. From my own experience, I know there are some commercial institutions that are operated at a reasonably effective level." Page was asked of there was a possibility that the opposition to for-profit prisons could have a ripple effect that turned against programs such as Charles Colson's Prison Fellowship, which operates "prisons within prisons." Departments of correction have contracted with Prison Fellowship in a number of states to run sequested units in their prisons. Working with inmates who asked to be in the sequested units, Prison Fellowship employees lead Bible studies, training and educational programs and intensive rehabilitation. The recidivism rates for prisoners in those units is dramatically lower – about 20 percent – than in the general prison population. Paige said he did not believe the denomination's opposition to private prisons would affect Prison Fellowship. There was an attempt to convince the denomination not to attack the concept of private prisons. A substitute motion suggested that "rather than flailing at big business, let us seek to influence" those who run the prisons. It failed. The ASCWP report made a number of assertions to oppose the for-profit prisons: recidivisim rates are "twice as high;" they do not save money; they are not effective; the rates of violence are "twice as high." |
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