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Everywhere the Same A
service celebrated at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Grand
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OPENING WORDS An inmate in Arizona, Judee Norton wrote, FIRST READING Anna Andreevna Gorenko was born in Russia, in 1889. She wrote poetry under the name “Anna Akhmatova,” although “wrote” is perhaps the wrong verb, as she often had to memorize her poetry, to keep her government from confiscating and destroying it. This is a small part of her masterpiece, “Requiem,” which she asked her friends to keep in their memories, and which was published without her knowledge in the mid-1960s: “INSTEAD OF A PREFACE During the frightening years of the Yezhov terror, I spent seventeen months waiting in prison queues in Leningrad. One day, somehow, someone 'picked me out'. On that occasion there was a woman standing behind me, her lips blue with cold, who, of course, had never in her life heard my name. Jolted out of the torpor characteristic of all of us, she said into my ear (everyone whispered there) - 'Could one ever describe this?' And I answered - 'I can.' It was then that something like a smile slid across what had previously been just a face. DEDICATION Mountains fall before this grief, A mighty river stops its flow, But prison doors stay firmly bolted Shutting off the convict burrows And an anguish close to death. Fresh winds softly blow for someone, Gentle sunsets warm them through; we don't know this, We are everywhere the same, listening To the scrape and turn of hateful keys And the heavy tread of marching soldiers. Waking early, as if for early mass, Walking through the capital run wild, gone to seed, We'd meet - the dead, lifeless; the sun, Lower every day; the [river], mistier: But hope still sings forever in the distance. The verdict. Immediately a flood of tears, Followed by a total isolation, As if a beating heart is painfully ripped out, or, Thumped, she lies there brutally laid out, But she still manages to walk, hesitantly, alone. Where are you, my unwilling friends, Captives of my two satanic years? What miracle do you see in a Siberian blizzard? What shimmering mirage around the circle of the moon? I send each one of you my salutation, and farewell.” SECOND READING Victor Hassine was born in Egypt, in 1955. His family
was expelled for being Jewish, and eventually settled in New Jersey.
Victor earned a law degree, and was later sentenced to life without
parole for his part in a murder conspiracy. He founded the first
accredited synagogue inside a U.S. prison, and has edited several books
on living in prison. If I made eye contact with a stranger, I would feel threatened. An unexpected smile could mean trouble. A man in uniform was not a friend. Being kind was a weakness. Viciousness and recklessness were to be respected and admired. I could feel my habits, my personality, and even my values change. I came to view the world as a place of unrelenting fear. Oddly enough, these changes were in some way comforting. In the struggle to survive, it was easier to distrust everyone than to believe in their inherent goodness.” SERMON How many of you have watched more than 10 episodes of the TV
show, Law & Order? How many prefer the “Law” segment, about “the police
who investigate crime”? How many prefer the “Order” segments, about the
“district attorneys who prosecute the offenders”? I actually have a lot of sympathy for our criminal justice workers, who have to follow hundreds of rules and regulations as they attempt to deal with violent, often desperate persons who follow no rules, except possibly “escape at all costs.” I think that we do need prisons and guards. Some people really need to be separated from the rest of us. I know that many criminals come from bad situations, they may have been neglected or abused as children, they may have been born into poverty or addiction. I agree that we as a society owe it to humanity to create more just and fair conditions for all people. And, in the meantime, there are some people who really need to be locked away. We ought not mistreat them while they are behind bars, and we should be very, very careful when trying people, to eliminate as many mistakes as possible—and imprisonment is an appropriate response in many cases. I was recently emailed the story of a woman and a man who were involved in a car accident on a snowy, cold Monday morning. Both of their cars were totally demolished, but amazingly neither of them were injured. After they crawled out of their cars, the man began yelling, and the woman tried to calm him down: “So you're a man. And I'm a woman. That's interesting. And just look at our cars! There's nothing left, but we're unhurt. This must be a sign from the universe that we should meet and be friends and live together in peace for the rest of our days.” Flattered, the man replied, "I can see that; this could be a sign. But you were still at fault. You can’t expect me just to forgive you, right away…” The woman continued, “And look at this, here's another miracle. My car is completely demolished but this bottle of wine didn't break. Surely we are supposed to drink this wine and celebrate our good fortune.” Then she handed the bottle to the man. The man nodded his head, opened the bottle and took a big drink, then handed it back to the woman. She took the bottle and immediately put the cork back in. The man asked, “Aren't you having any?” To which she replied, “No. I think I'll just wait for the police....” Aside from the lamentable gender stereotypes in that joke, there is an important truth. Circumstantial evidence, and just plain bad luck, can be as damaging in a courtroom as actual guilt. Mistakes do happen. Innocent people do end up incarcerated. Keeping that in mind—knowing that we must always be vigilant to minimize mistakes and corruption—there are still four common reasons for having prisons and prisoners. First, prisons provide security—they keep the most dangerous people away from the rest of us. Second, they serve to punish the guilty. Perhaps it is from an unenlightened part of our brains, but human justice often requires some kind of punishment. That leads to the third reason: deterrence. Some criminal justice experts theorize that the fear of going to prison will deter some people from committing crimes. Finally, at least a part of our prison system attempts to rehabilitate the prisoners, so they may be better people, and better citizens, when they are released. In theory, these can all be good goals. Unfortunately, our current system of justice falls short on every one of those goals, and it performs awfully on a couple of them. Perhaps the biggest problem with our system is its inherent racism. This may be true of most countries and cultures, that one subset of humanity oppresses another, but it is definitely true in the United States. Blacks are stopped more often than whites, convicted more often than whites, given longer sentences, and condemned to death more frequently than whites in similar situations. It cannot be called a “justice system” if it is so demonstrably unjust. It certainly does not create security in our society. Most young black men are terribly insecure with their legal status, and that insecurity and fear leads to insecurity and instability throughout society. Another systemic issue is mental illness. One in six prisoners in our country have mental illness—that’s over 283,000 people. When our governments shut down most mental hospitals, without providing other facilities or sources of treatment, many mentally ill persons ended up in prison. Nowadays, mental health facilities are expensive, so many sufferers end up on the street, and then in jail. Most prisons provide inadequate or no care; the mentally ill are often mistreated by the staff and are virtually always abused by the other prisoners. Besides the obvious injustice done to the people experiencing mental illness, who would be better served in a hospital; there is also the fact that prison populations are 20% more crowded than they would be without their mentally ill prisoners, and these inmates stress the system by their inability to understand or follow the rules. Again, a system with such obvious flaws cannot be “just.” Putting aside those ills, which permeate all of society yet show up most starkly in our legal system, our prisons simply do not achieve our desired results. |
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