THE QUESTION REMAINS

By Leonard Jefferson

Statistics -- such as those on page 126 of the FINAL REPORT OF THE PENNSYLVANIA SUPREME COURT COMMITTEE ON RACIAL AND GENDER BIAS IN THE JUSTICE SYSTEM (2003) tell us: "In 1930, 77 percent of the people admitted to U.S. prisons were white, 22 percent African American. That ratio was virtually reversed by 2000, with African Americans and Latinos accounting for 62.6 percent of all federal and state prisoners. In Pennsylvania, racial and ethnic minorities account for 66 percent of the state prison population but only 12 percent of the Commonwealth's population. “...with an incarceration ratio of 18.4 African American citizens for every one white citizen per 100,000 population." 

This sounds an alarm which should cause all to ask what, if anything, have we learned from the historic example of the policies of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party as it digressed (or progressed depending on your perspective) step by step denying its citizens all rights of full citizenship, to blaming the social-ills of the nation on the minority population, to fanning the flames of hatred against its minority citizens, to decisions to build more and more prison camps to confine the hated minorities, and, some six million state-sponsored murders later, to mummifying corpses and ashes at places with names such as Auschwitz, Buchenwald and Dachau. In light of the reality that our state and federal governments accelerated their prison construction binges in 1980 (and increased the number of people in prison in these United States of America from around 500,000 to over two million today) two of the most relevant questions have become:

1. With only a few steps between filling prisons as fast as they can be built and the implementation of a final solution, how many more steps down this punitive path must America stumble in order to come face to face with the reality that human beings must climb up the path of restorative justice, or self-destruct?

2. Have the seductive policies and practices of an eye for an eye vengeance (which provides only instant gratification with no short or long term healing) so blinded those who‘re now so tough on crime that they happily throw out the proverbial baby with the bath water? Are they blinded to such a degree that they are now unable to recognize the truth and the inherent benefits of acting upon the truth. In Verse 45 of Chapter 5 the Holy Quran tells us that, yes, an eye for an eye is permissible but forgiveness and restorative justice are better?

All concerned citizens whose eyes have not yet been blinded by racial hatred or extinguished by the blinding desire for vengeance, and especially those who have been informed of the plan to increase the number of prisoners in Pennsylvania's Department of Corrections from a little less than 47,000 today to 54,000 by 2010 , should seriously look at the recent proposal of Gov Rendell to reduce prison overcrowding by creating community-based/alternative-to-incarceration programs for a certain group of non-violent offenders who, as of this writing, have not yet committed the offenses which will land them in the proposed community based program rather than a jail cell. In light of recent statements in the media which quote Corrections Secretary Beard as saying: "I need 4,000 beds right now. . . " it is essential to understand that the proposed plan for diverting certain non-violent offenders from serving jail time is a positive step toward a program of restorative justice and may represent the first step in a new direction.

Somewhere along the path that leads to restorative justice politicians will find it necessary to bite the bullet, to acknowledge the existence of and then work to free, the group of prisoners who are more deserving of being spared jail time today than any of tomorrow‘s non-violent offenders. This group is comprised of individuals whose only "offense" has been their poverty and lack of knowledge of complicated appellate procedures. These "offenses" cause members of the more deserving group to be branded with morbid titles such as "time barred" and/or "procedurally defaulted" which, pursuant to Pennsylvania’s 1995 PCRA Amendments and the (federal) 1996 AEDPA, means members of the more deserving group will never be allowed an opportunity to have a court review the non-DNA evidence which they have gathered while wrongly imprisoned that proves they are actually innocent of the crime for which they remain imprisoned. In the eyes and minds of the members of this most deserving group, who have witnessed the destruction, distortion and twisting of due process of the laws to eliminate their human rights, the steps between America's criminal justice system implementing a Nazi-style final solution must necessarily appear to be few and short.

But, the question remains, “How do they appear to you?” 

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