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By Joseph Williams, Christian Association for Prison Aftercare
I observed Dennis Wallace, Jr. lovingly interact with his wife, Sharone and their three children, Tre', Stephen and Nadia in the living room of their neat brick bungalow situated in a middle class Detroit neighborhood. Looking at this close-knit family, you could never imagine the twisted and bumpy road he traveled to arrive at this peaceful place in his life.
Both of his parents had been murdered by the time he was six years old in separate drug-related events. He and his siblings went into the child welfare system and spent a number of years in foster care.
Dennis grew up in an era when major cities were marked by high crime and unemployment rates. Drug dealers were the most prominent entrepreneurs in the community. As an adolescent, he began to participate in various criminal enterprises that continued into his adult life. As an adult felon he was incarcerated for a non-violent drug offense, becoming one of the over 2.3 million U.S. citizens that annually occupy this nation's prisons.
Actually, the U.S. incarcerates more people than any other country. Most are young Black men from poor urban neighborhoods. The phenomenon that has led to what amounts to an explosion in the U.S. prison population is often referred to as "mass incarceration." According to the Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 1980, 501,886 people were incarcerated in U.S. prisons and jails. By 2006, that number reached 2,336,871- nearly a five-fold increase in just one generation. During the 25-year period of a 500 percent growth in the prison population, the US population grew by only 4%.
Mass incarceration affects mostly young men. One in thirty men between the ages of 20 -34 is behind bars in the U.S. This problem is particularly devastating to the Black community. One in nine black men between the ages of 20-34 is in prison. It is estimated that 1/3 of all Black men will spend time in prison during their lifetime.
Sadly, there has been no outcry from our national leaders regarding this alarming crisis. Politicians have been mostly silent. Even church leaders have failed to cry out against this social malady. Many, I have found, do not really recognize this as a real problem. "You do the crime, you do the crime," they say. Criminals should be locked up, right? This attitude assumes that the rise in the incarceration rate is due to an increase in crime. Mass incarceration, however, is not due to an increase in violent crimes such as murder, rape, and robbery, or property crimes such as burglary and car theft. In 1980, these crimes totaled 13,408,300 nationally (5,950 per 100,000 people); but by 2002, these crimes had dropped to 11,877,218 (4,118 per 100,000).
This explosion is due mostly to the over-incarceration of non-violent drug offenders. But, one should not assume that Blacks commit more of these crimes than others. Blacks, who comprise only 12% of the population and account for about 13% of drug users, constitute 35% of all arrests for drug possession, 55% of all convictions on those charges, and 74% of all those sentenced to prison for possession. As a result, more Black men are in prison or jail, on probation or parole than were in slavery in 1850.
We all have a stake in correcting this problem. When men like Dennis are needlessly incarcerated we all lose. We must challenge our political and religious leaders to learn more about and care more about this issue. Only when we begin to desire to restore the lives of men like Dennis, instead of exacting harsh punishment, can we hope to repair the damage to our society that has been caused by crime.
Thanks to the restorative attitude and effort of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, Dennis is a productive member of society. He uses the Bachelor Degree he earned and his experience to help restore the lives of others.
Copyright © 2011 Christian Association for Prison Aftercare. All Rights Reserved.
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