During the recent elections, (if indeed they turn out to have been elections!) crime was a hot topic. It has been a hot-button issue for a long time. Candidates seem to vie for the high "honor" of getting the most "get tough on crime" press. It seems to be a mark of nobility.

Crime is big business. United States has about 4% of the world's population, and about 25% of the world's prisoners. There are more than 2 million Americans in our jails and prisons. Another 5 million are awaiting trial, are on probation or parole.

The black population of this country makes up about 13% of our people, but 58% of our prisoners! And 78% of all prisoners convicted on drug charges. Do we have a race problem? Christian Parenti, author of Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis, calls this a form of apartheid, the "incipient American police state."

Sociologist Loic Waqaunt calls criminal justice the latest development in an age-old project of controlling black people with force. We've gone from Jim Crow to a new color-coded system of "justice." One of our board members told me once that the criminal justice system is more criminal that justice!

Robert Perkinson teaches at Yale. He calls slavery the real birth of the American prison system. He says measures taken to control the black population in the South (particularly black males) are the true antecedents of our disgraceful modern criminal justice system.

The New Yorker described how youth crime in Boston has declined by a dramatic 15% without one gun-related homicide of a young person in a year and a half. When asked for an explanation, Boston police credited young black pastors who made up a Ten Point Coalition in that city. "Unconditional love" (love that is tough to activate!) has proved to save kids from the ravages of drugs and urban violence.

As a white man I am in a minority in both Metropolitan Jail Ministry and the Sheriff's Chaplain Corps, so I realize I am not telling you anything you don't already know, better than I.

Incarceration in America costs $35 billion a year, and employs more than 525,000 full-time workers, more than any Fortune 500 company except General Motors. (With their current problems, GM may dwindle to 2nd place before long!)

Spending on "corrections" in many states is the fastest-growing component in the state budget. With the recent influx of gambling opportunities in this community, you better bet the cost of crime will increase dramatically in our city.

With the growing population of inmates, do we see a dramatic decrease in crime? With a doubling of inmates during the past few years, surely we should expect less crime . . . shouldn't we? But we didn't!

We all know that poverty is a major factor in breeding criminals. The official poverty level for a family of four is $16,500; and there is talk of raising that to $19,500. Even at that higher figure there are 47 million Americans living in poverty.

Andrew Young, one of the major figures in the Civil Rights movement, friend of Martin Luther King, former mayor of Atlanta, United States ambassador to the United Nations, is a United Church of Christ minister. When he was a student at Howard University, he was confused about what he wanted to do with his life. His parents wanted him to get a good education, but he was thinking about dropping out. He was a lifeguard in a local swimming pool.

One day he pulled a young man out of the water, and then discovered the man was on drugs. When the fellow "came to" he looked at Young and said, "Do you remember me? You and I were sent out of school together when we were in the 3rd grade." That was in New Orleans in the 30s.

Young did remember. He had gone to a telephone and called his mother. His mother came right down, took him home, paddled him, talked to the teacher, and the next day he was back in school.

The other fellow's mother was a domestic, working for $1 a day plus carfare. She could not come down. He dropped out of school and into jail. His life had been one of drugs, jails, poverty.

When Young told the man he was thinking of leaving school . . . well, here's the way he tells it: "For an hour and a half I was in a counseling session. That 3rd grade dropout was just as intelligent as I, and a whole lot more mature. He insisted that I stay in school and make something of myself. He opened my eyes to what my parents had tried to tell me."

Dear friends, if we want to get tough on crime, let's start by getting tough on schools. Let's get tough on poverty. Andrew Young says there is "no excuse for the islands of poverty in the sea of abundance."

We are, in fact, a rich country and society. Somehow we need to work for more equitable distribution of the wealth. The obscene salaries of rich business people, sports figures, actors, while millions live in poverty, is anti-American, unchristian and indefensible.

Criminologist Steven Spritzer (not to be confused with our own Steve Spreitzer, who is a friend of MJM, a man with many talents and interests regarding justice issues) divides the poor into two categories: "social dynamite" and "social junk."

Social dynamite are those who threaten to explode.

They include the angry young people who form political protest movements and gangs. We who work with Detroit area inmates know something about them, don't we!

Social junk are the marginalized, the mentally ill, the poor souls who push shopping carts around town. They have been beaten down until they have given up. Our Better Business Bureau would like to keep these people out of sight in the down-town area. They give Detroit a bad name, especially to visitors and conventioneers -- to casino visitors!

Our prison system is ostensibly programmed to rehabilitate prisoners. In light of the get-tough-on-crime rhetoric of politicians, that objective seems almost a joke. We who have been active in MJM for some years remember our effort to implement aggressive rehabilitation. If more money were spent on true rehabilitation, there would be significantly less recidivism, a smaller prison population. Unfortunately, we had trouble obtaining sufficient funds for that initiative.

Filling the jails and prisons has culminated in a veritable school system for criminals.

We need also to address the matter of punishment. When people are sent to prison, the reasons given are rehabilitation and punsihment. In regard to punishment, I submit that the word is really a misnomer. What we mean is retaliation, retribution. We want to get even, to satisfy our anger. That is sad.

Martin Luther King Jr. was in New York, autographing copies of one of his books, when a demented black lady stabbed him. He was within a fraction of an inch of death. The blade was so near his aorta that the doctor said if King had sneezed he would have died.

Did King want her punished? Here's what he said, "This person needs help. She is not responsible for the violence she has done. Don't do anything to her; don't prosecute her; get her healed."

That, my friends, is tough love, love and concern that is tough to come by, tough to activate. But that is the only acceptable reaction to criminals. Get them healed, helped, rehabilitated.

That brings us to an important consideration: Why do criminals do what they do? I propose there are two obvious reasons. Many are, as King's attacker, demented. Crazed, unsound. As such, they are not completely responsible for their actions. They need help, healing.

Another reason people commit crimes is for the adventure of it. I can still remember listening to a radio program when I was a kid. They told of crimes and how they were solved. There were times I tho't, "I'd like to do that. I could get by with it. I wouldn't be as stupid as that criminal was." I am glad I never tried it!

Today, people are challenged with more and more stimulants, from gambling to high-adrenaline games.

Watch kids play video games, or see their parents watch football, or go to the movies. Then ask why they need more excitement!

You know by now that I am no longer a "fundamentalist" of the right-wing flavor. There are a number of reasons. Attitudes on crime and punishment are at the top of the list. The God who is worshiped by the fundamentalists is tough on crime. Just read the old testament, especially Joshua and Judges.

In the Old West, a cattleman's cowboys brought to him one of their number who had been caught stealing cattle. What should they do? He said, "Hang him, that'll teach him."

Is that what Jesus said to the "righteous" men when they brought an adulterous woman to him? "Stone her, that'll teach her"?

There is no violence more tragic, more vicious than when "righteous" people get tough on "criminals." There is no "Christian" more unchristian.

Women were burned alive or hanged in primitive America because they were "caught in the act" or were considered to be witches. White "Christians" formed mobs to lynch black people here in our country. Iranian roving "morality police" arrest women whose ankles show beneath their dresses!

What monstrous acts of violence we do, especially when we feel we have religious justification, even obligation!

I suggest that we need to confront not so much the statistics of the criminal population, but society's preoccupation with violence. I don't watch much TV, but as I walk a treadmill at the health club every morning, they have a TV blaring, and it includes many commercials for programs I would not watch: screaming and fights -- and at this Christmas season, ads for videos to buy the kids, videos you and I would not watch. It is completely unconscionable that we permit the manufacture and sale of such repulsive trash, especially as gifts for the next generation.

Can't you just hear Jesus still saying, "You have heard that murder is sin, but I say to you, it is hate that is the sin"?

Let me put in a commercial here: There is a People for Better TV (PBTV) task force in which we are trying to induce just that, better TV. We have already collected thousands of signatures on petitions to the FCC. They will soon issue new guidelines. Please support that program. I have cards for you to take home tonight. Then you need to sign those cards and urge your friends and neighbors to join you.

If we ever expect to lower the crime rate, we better get to the task of lowering the rate of violence in our society. That includes not only TV and videos, but music, domestic violence, "sports" and the overemphasis on competition in business.

As Christians and Muslims, we need to work for and with nonviolence.

Even in terms of the society in which he ministered, Jesus had very little impact. But look what he started! We are here today because of his ministry. In fact, we are really part of his ministry!

We are a small group. I am a small time preacher. Many of you are also preachers. And counselors. How can we make a difference? What can we do?

Glad you asked! We can "visit those in prison." Which, of course, we do. That is the reason for our existence. We can also lobby for prison reform. God asks us to speak up and out for true justice. "Shout it aloud, do not hold back. Raise your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their rebellion and to the house of Jacob their sins." (Isaiah 58:1)

Like Jesus, Isaiah did not make much of an impact on his society. You and I aren't going to change the world. But Isaiah did what the Lord required of him. You and I are called to do what God requires of us. We are commissioned to change our little corner of the world. In our case, that little corner is the population of Wayne County jails.

Actually, when you consider the jail population, it isn't such a little corner, is it? It is quite large, and unfortunately it is getting larger by the day.

In no way must we make it sound easy. It isn't. Politicians and society are "out for blood."

Have you ever heard of Jim McLoskey? He founded Centurion Ministries, who work for "voiceless, anonymous, forgotten, forsaken people" who have not become magnets for political publicists, the politicians who might have many votes to gain by taking on such cases. In 17 years of working for the poor and the forgotten, they have won freedom and vindication for 22 innocent people who were under life or death sentences.

While I am proposing local action, in no way are we excused from social activism on the broader scale. Michigan is being urged by the right-wing lobby to reinstitute the death penalty. We need to shout and scream about that issue.

There is no way to justify the death penalty on the basis of Christianity. No way! The only way to justify the death penalty is to revert to the old Jewish laws of Leviticus, and if we do that, we will have to execute disobedient children, homosexuals; we will have to gather stones to throw for incontinence, perjury, thievery, blasphemy, teaching false doctrines . . .

Florida recently sentenced a 12-year old boy as an adult, to a life in prison. That is just one of many cases which should induce you to participate in our "Coalition of Religious Leaders to Oppose the Death Penalty."

I am proud that Michigan was the first state to abolish the death penalty. Let's keep it that way, shall we?

My friend and former Detroit UCC minister Robin Meyers, now in Oklahoma City, recently counseled and comforted Wanda Jean Allen before her execution. At her request, he went with her to the execution. He asked, "What kind of clemency [do] you get in Oklahoma when you are poor, black, female, mentally impaired and lesbian?" For asking such an impudent question, he has been attacked by right-wing religionists!

Victim-offender mediation is another cause for which we need to lobby. Pioneered in Canada in the 70s by Mennonites, it has been endorsed by the American Bar Association. Mennonite professor Howard Zehr says, "When we focus on the harms of wrongdoing, when we ask what needs to be done to repair those harms, we suddenly realize these questions can't be answered without a three-dimensional approach, involving victim, offender and the community . . ."

Tag Evers says, "The adversarial nature of the criminal justice system and the realities of politics pose huge barriers to restorative justice."

Speaking of adversarialness, you may have noticed that Bill Clinton is on the way out. It looks like the Republicans are again going to hold the keys. Clinton appointed many black judges. The Republican Senate turned down more than one in three, compared to fewer than one is six white judges! In Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland and West Virginia, there have been no black judges, altho they have the largest proportion of minorities of any of the 11 circuits!

Brothers and sisters, getting tough on the criminal justice system is not easy, and it will get much tougher in the years ahead. But I submit that Jesus is calling us to stay involved. You are to be congratulated on the remarkable ministry you have had for these past 26 years. Maybe we need to compile some of our success stories to encourage each other. I urge you today to renew your determination to be about our Father's business.

Let us raise our voices in opposition to the violence in society. Let us participate in any and every cause which is dedicated to making this a kinder and gentler world. If we can make our corner of the Detroit community a better place to live -- hallelujah!

You hear the radio preachers admonish us to exercise "tough love." I suggest we do get "tough on crime." Tough love is not showing how tough I can be on others, but it is diligently working on the tough job of loving others as I love myself. That kind of love is indeed tough. But if you and I can learn to love these inmates, really love them with the kind of love Jesus had for the poor and for criminals, we will make a difference.

Jewish mystic Simone Weil wrote (Gravity and Grace), "If someone does me an injury I must insure this injury does not degrade me; and I must do so out of love for him who inflicts it, so that he may not really have done evil." Martin Marty suggests that we copy that and put it on the refrigerator. Excellent idea!

We are one of the 5 new emphases of the Wayne County Sheriff's department, under the rubric of the LifeLiners Division. LifeLiners has been developed to touch the lives of inmates, their families and the community. You may like to know they are:

1. Metropolitan Jail Ministry. I guess you all know about that! We are the ministry to inmates.

We participate in a program of family guidance, to help families, especially children, adjust to the trauma of a mother or father in jail.

2. The Second Chance Institute is a program in which prisoners are given a chance to work on the "outside" for 30 days before they are released. They still live in the jail, but are taken to places to work for 8 hours a day. Churches may want to get involved in some way.

Another component is the Second Chance Discharge Transition Program which puts inmates in touch with agency and community resources to help them redirect their lives in positive ways, and deal with major life and family needs.

The Second Chance Program provides support and discussion groups within the facility, and community led support groups after they are discharged.

3. Team for Justice is a long established program dedicated to preserving human rights of victims and offenders thru advocacy.

4. The Chaplain Corps, which we are now expanding to a county-wide Emergency Trauma Chaplains Corps, to include the 42 police departments in Wayne County.

5. VIP -- Victim Impact Program. Here, like the Mennonite-inspired program I mentioned earlier, victims and perpetrators are able to meet face to face in an effort to bring healing to both.

What does God require of us, but to love and serve those in our jails.

Let us be about the task . . .