Is Our Parole Board Carrying Out Its Mission?

The following Open Forum piece was published in today's Daily News-Record:

Members of the newly appointed (and yet to be confirmed) parole board reviewed 177 eligible cases in March without granting a single release. Not one.

Just one example in its report is of a 55-year-old African American incarcerated for over 36 years. According to precedent, no board member actually met with this individual, nor did they confer with each other regarding the case, but each had access to information provided by an on-site interviewer and cast their votes online, choosing reasons from such options as the following:

Considering your offense and your institutional records, the Board concludes you should serve more of your sentence before being paroled.

Extensive criminal record

History of substance abuse.

History of violence.

Release at this time would diminish the seriousness of crime. 

Serious nature and circumstances of your offense(s).

His list is a cookie cutter version of the reasons cited in the report, none of which acknowledge anyone’s accomplishments, and which brings up the following questions:

If our Department of Corrections (DOC) is unsuccessful in actually rehabilitating anyone, are we admitting that our $1.5 billion a year investment in “corrections” is a dismal failure?

How does the parole board’s actions reflect the DOC’s vision statement, “A premier correctional organization where all individuals achieve their full potential,” or its mission statement, “We are in the business of helping people to be better by safely providing effective incarceration, supervision and evidence-based re-entry services to inmates and supervisees”? 

You have to wonder whether a Department of Education, for example, would deny students graduation based on “the seriousness of their ignorance” upon enrollment, rather than on their actual performance during their time in the classroom.

A 2021 report by law professors Bruck, Donovan and Engle and the W&L University School of Law’s  “Parole Presentation Project” states, “Any discussion of potential reforms in Virginia’s parole system must start with the recognition that parole is a societal good. A decision to grant parole recognizes the successful rehabilitation of a prisoner. In other words, a parole grant is the result of the penal system functioning as we want it to.”         

The non-profit and non-partisan Prison Policy Initiative, which does extensive research on the societal cost of mass incarceration, gives Virginia (and many other states, including California) a failing grade on its parole system. The very red and rural state of Wyoming earned its best rating, a B-, with Mississippi and Utah, along with two more urban states, Michigan and New Jersey, each earning C-’s. 

The states given passing grades do not use the “seriousness of the offense” as a sole reason for denying parole, although the Board may consider the facts of a case. They mandate in-person, face-to-face parole hearings, and provide caseworkers to incarcerated individuals to help prepare them for their hearing. They allow incarcerated individuals access to the information the Board uses to determine whether to grant or deny, and allows them to question the accuracy of that information. They allow prison staff who have day-to-day perspectives on an individual’s character and growth to provide in-person testimony, and allow individuals on parole to reduce their length of supervision by accruing good time. 

To the best of my knowledge, none of these things are true in Virginia’s parole system. Meanwhile, the grant rates in the above states are as high as 65%, closer to that of Virginia’s prior to 1995, and with positive outcomes.

Virginia’s release rates were well below 10% even under former administrations, and of those who remain eligible, most have been denied countless times, and are at the point of giving up hope. At nearby Augusta Correctional Center last year, for example, nearly 200 men, many with excellent behavior records and who had positive interviews by parole investigators, nevertheless were all denied release. Every one.

Having said that, our message to those behind bars should be clear. If you remain violent, anti-social and unrepentant you will remain incarcerated until you have served your time. But we are all better off if deserving persons are given second chance to become productive, taxpaying workers when they have been infraction-free for decades and have demonstrated thoroughly changed lives.

Not only will that improve the safety, security and morale of everyone in prison, but in light of the growing medical and other costs of incarcerating an ever greater number of elderly and infirm people behind bars, it will save us all a ton of money.

And maybe even result in our earning an A+ for having a Department of Correction that actually corrects and a Parole Board that actually paroles.

Change Of Venue For A Unique Fundraiser

Please note that the location for this unique Saturday morning "fun-raiser" has been moved from Lucy Simms Community Center to the Community Mennonite Church, right next to Gemeinschaft Home's new Women's House. 

The response of community businesses has been wonderful. They are providing their best coffee, donuts and other pastries as well as numerous door prizes. Community Mennonite, which owns the Dean House (the home of Gemeinschaft's Women's program) is graciously providing its social hall for this low-budget event. 

Low budget means that virtually all of the $50, $100, $200, $500 or $1000(!) "van payments" you make will help Gemeinschaft replace its aging and ailing vehicle with a new 15-passenger van that will more adequately serve the residents of the two houses.

If you can't attend this event in person on May 7--and enjoy some amazing original music composed by Gemeinschaft residents--you can make your contribution online.

Thanks for your generous help!

As It Was In The Days Of Noah

 

(painting by Quaker artist Edward Hicks)

Just as it was in the days of Noah, so too it will be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking, and marrying and being given in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed all of them. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot: they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, but on the day that Lot left Sodom, it rained fire and sulphur from heaven and destroyed all of them.  

Jesus, Luke 17:26-29 (NRSV)

 

Reading these ominous words of Jesus remind me of the near total indifference I see on the part of most of us North Americans to today's signs of apocalyptic disasters.

We've come to believe that what millions of others on the planet suffer on a daily basis could never, ever affect us, or threaten our own future security or wellbeing.

Here are some headlines in just one day's paper (Daily News Record 4/21/22) that most of us find ourselves largely unaffected by, allowing us to carry on with business as usual.

Russia Tightens The Noose in Mariupol

With global tensions running high, Russia reported the first successful test of a new type of intercontinental missile, the Sarmat. President Vladimir Putin boasted it can overcome any missile defense system and make those who threaten Russia "think twice..."

US Pentagon Chief speaks For The First Time To Chinese Counterpart

The long-strained U.S.-China relationship may have reached a new low with the Russian invasion. At times, Beijing has sought to distance itself from the conflict but avoided directly criticizing Moscow. At other moments, Beijing's actions have been provocative...

Ukraine War Refugees Top 5 Million As Assault Intensifies

After spending weeks with no electricity or water in the basement of her family's home in the Ukraine, Viktoriya Savyichkina made a daring escape from the besieged city of Mariupol with her 9- and 14-year-old daughters. Their dwelling for now is a huge convention center in Poland's capitol...

Climate Change, Big Agriculture Combine To threaten Insects

Insect pollinators are responsible for about one-third of the human diet, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And 2 out of the 5 invertebrate pollinators, such as bees and butterflies, are on the path toward extinction, a 2016 United Nations science report said.

In light of this kind of information to which we are exposed every day, am I advocating wringing our hands in despair or becoming immobilized with fear? Absolutely not.

But the alternative is not to ignore all of the warning signs of a future in which the four horses of the Apocalypse may yet wreak inevitable havoc. 

Rather, we can focus on actions like the following:

1. We can and must pray together for God's will and God's ways to prevail everywhere on earth, beginning with God radically changing our own ways of thinking and living.

2. We can aim at limiting our consumption of the world's resources by half.

3. We can double up on our giving and on sharing with others in our community and around the world.

4. We can use our influence to urge people everywhere to turn from self-centered living and to follow Christ's example of joyful self denial and self giving for our neighbors' sake, for our own sakes and for God's sake.

To Sanford, With Love--A Service Of Memory

Family members and friends of my oldest and only remaining brother Sanford gathered for a memorable service in his memory Saturday at Pilgrim Fellowship Church, located next to the Augusta County farm where all nine of us siblings grew up.

The songs for the service were ones Sanford had chosen for the funeral he and Martha had planned, which was to be in both Spanish and in English. But due to Covid regulations in Costa Rica his burial had to be within 24-hours of his death, so the funeral service was held the next day and was in Spanish only. All of their ten children, half of whom live in the states, were blessed to be present for his passing and for the memorial service that was live streamed for all of us unable to attend.

Since so many of us couldn't be present for that service we planned a celebration of life here that was in turn live streamed to Martha and others across the states and in Central America.

The first hymn Lord Speak to Me is one Sanford recalled my having led at his ordination service in September of 1960. He wanted to mark the beginning and ending of his ministry with this prayer hymn, and had requested I lead it.

The second one, Great is Thy Faithfulness, was sung in connection with Sanford's experience in the hospital ten years ago following a severe heart attack. After his first night he reported having been blessed by a group of strangers who came into his room and sang this beloved hymn for him. When he inquired of Martha the next morning as to who the singers were, she assured him no one had been there. So was it just a dream? A vision? A choir of angels? Saturday we became that choir to sing it in his memory.

Pastor Johnny Miller of Minerva, Ohio, read a scripture, Ephesians 2:1-10, that Sanford, at 91, with Martha's patient help, had memorized not long before his death, a special challenge since he could no longer see to read the text. 

Miller recalled visiting in Sanford's home with his father when he was only 15 years old and recalling their having talked about the idea of evangelization by colonization in a country like Costa Rica, a dream to which my brother devoted most of his adult life. Two of the Miller's children later married into Sanford and Martha's family.

A highlight of the service was having Hosea Troyer, administrator of Faith Mission Home, a residential training school for the mentally handicapped, share the story of Sanford's vision for that work and for his role as the Home's first administrator. Many of us were moved to tears by the inspirational choir of staff and students from Mission Home who sang for us.

The remainder of the service and at the meal that followed was one of sharing a multitude of memories and tributes from friends and family, followed by members of his extended family singing a song Sanford had composed years earlier.

Unforgettable.

                         Order of Service

“Lord Speak to Me” 

“Great is Thy Faithfulness”

Scripture meditation and Prayer ................... Johnny Miller

Mission Home Memories c/o Hosea Troyer, with staff and

students from Faith Mission Home

“King of My Life”

“Each Step I Take” 

Open mic sharing of memories and blessings

"Strangers and Pilgrims"..........composed by Sanford

“There is a Land of Pure Delight” #596...Isaac Watts

Closing comments and prayer ....................... Joe Peachey

Holy Week, Beginning With Celebration, Is Followed By Weeping, Outrage And Darkness

 

This dramatic event in the outer court of the temple almost certainly sealed Jesus' fate and resulted in his crucifixion.

The royal donkey ride celebrating Jesus's arrival in Jerusalem was reminiscent of his ancestor King Solomon's inaugural parade into town on his father David's special mount.

     And King David said, “Call to me Zadok the priest, Nathan the prophet, and Benaiah the son of Jehoiada.” So they came before the king. The king also said to them, “Take with you the servants of your lord, and have Solomon my son ride on my own mule, and take him down to Gihon. There let Zadok the priest and Nathan the prophet anoint him king over Israel; and blow the horn, and say, ‘Long live King Solomon!’ Then you shall come up after him, and he shall come and sit on my throne, and he shall be king in my place. For I have appointed him to be ruler over Israel and Judah....

     Zadok the priest took the horn of oil from the sacred tent and anointed Solomon. Then they sounded the trumpet and all the people shouted, “Long live King Solomon!” And all the people went up after him, playing pipes and rejoicing greatly, so that the ground shook with the sound."

I Kings 1:32-35, 39-40 (NIV)

In Luke's account this is followed by Jesus weeping in anguish over what he predicted would be the utter destruction of Judaism's beloved capitol city. 

As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God’s coming to you.”

Luke 19:41-44 (NIV)

On the next day of this memorable week Jesus's anguish turns to outrage as he observes what is happening in the temple's Gentile Court. What was created as a place of welcome for non-Jewish worshippers had become a market place for the sale of animals and doves and for the exchanging Roman coins for the currency required for temple offerings. 

This large outer court was to be a place for teaching, debate and for the singing of psalms of praises and ascent. As a twelve-year-old Jesus had engaged in serious conversation in this very area with some Jewish rabbis assembled there. One can imagine that one of the questions he could have raised was when or how the words of the prophet Isaiah would be fulfilled about Gentile foreigners and other undesirables being fully welcomed in God's temple.

For thus says the LORD, “To the eunuchs who keep My sabbaths, And choose what pleases Me, And hold fast My covenant, to them I will give in My house and within My walls a memorial, and a name better than that of sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name which will not be cut off. Also the foreigners who join themselves to the LORD, to minister to Him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be His servants, every one who keeps from profaning the sabbath and holds fast My covenant; even those I will bring to My holy mountain and make them joyful in My house of prayer.        Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be acceptable on My altar; for My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.”  Isaiah 56:6-7 NASB

Jesus's dramatic act of expelling those for whom profit took precedence over inclusion and welcome almost surely sealed his fate and made his crucifixion inevitable. 

Then Jesus entered the Temple and began to drive out the people selling animals for sacrifices. He said to them, “The Scriptures declare, ‘My Temple will be a house of prayer,’ but you have turned it into a den of thieves.”

Luke 19:45-46 (The Living Bible)

The rest is history, the story of Good Friday, the darkest imaginable day for Jesus's followers, but one which ushered in an entirely new dawn of eternal light for untold multitudes of believers.

A Well-Fitted Yoke Makes The Work Doable, The Burden Bearable

This was the backdrop for the message I gave at Zion Mennonite
Church Sunday, where I was a pastor from 1965-1988. 

“Come to me, all who are bone-tired and burned out, and I will give you a fresh supply of energy. Become yoked with me, allow me to be your teacher, and you will find direction and inspiration for a truly blessed and worthwhile life." 

Jesus, Matthew 11:28-30 (paraphrase)

We usually read these words as an invitation to stressed workaholics like ourselves to just relax and enjoy a much needed vacation like on a sunny beach or a mountain cabin somewhere. And there are times that can certainly be a good thing. 

But a yoke is designed to be an efficient way of getting needed work done, the kind that also makes us tired sometimes. Jesus is in fact extending this invitation at a time his followers are feeling fatigue, frustration and discouragement. Trying to keep up with Jesus wasn’t a picnic.

Jesus isn't just speaking to people as individuals here, as in privately addressing Matthew, the disciple who records the story, but he’s addressing all of the men and women who were his followers. The "you" in  “come to me all of you,” is plural, like the southern “you all,” Had Jesus been addressing a single individual, the older King James version of the Bible would translated it as, “Come unto me, thou who art weary and heavy laden, and I will give thee rest, Take my yoke upon thee and learn from me and thou shalt find rest for thy soul.” 

Charles "C.C." Turner, who donated the yoke to Zion (pictured above) when I was pastor there, explained that when an ox was needing to be trained to pull a plow or a wagon it would be yoked with a trained and experienced one. So we could think of the yoke metaphor as one in which Jesus is pulling on one side and his followers are yoked together on the other, with God as the one giving direction. Jesus, as the lead member of the team, demonstrates how to be faithful in being about his Father's business of healing, teaching, feeding and freeing people.

One of our neighbors years ago had draft horses who were trained to followed his voice commands. This was done for oxen as well, who don't wear bridles like horses, but are likewise trained to follow commands. Gee Haw means go straight ahead, Gee means turn to the right, and Haw to the left. And of course, Whoa means stop. Take a rest.

If you think about it, when in our baptism we become yoked with Jesus, we give up our right to go in whatever direction we choose, or at whatever pace we choose. When Jesus, at his Father’s direction, goes Gee, we can’t go Haw. When Jesus fearlessly moves forward, we move with him. When he pauses for rest, we rest. When he hangs out with questionable and rejected people in need of being loved, we do the same. If he is spending time feeding the hungry, offering hospitality to refugees and strangers, or ministering to people who are sick or in prison, we work with him as an extension of Gods hands and feet and voice, and as an expression of God's love.

If this sounds exhausting, this is where Jesus’s words of encouragement come in. 

Which is why I especially like Clarence Jordan’s Cotton Patch version of this passage. Clarence was a Bible scholar who founded Koinonia Farms in Americus, Georgia in the 60's when it was still one of the most segregated places in the South. Here he and his family and his fellow Koinonians were threatened, bullied and boycotted, and even had some of their property bombed and shot at because they believed following Jesus meant living and working with people without regard to race or class. So Jordan translated the passage: "Come to me, all of you who are frustrated and have had a bellyful, and I will give you zest, Get in the harness with me and let me teach you, for I am trained and have a cooperative spirit, and you will find zest for your lives. For my harness is practical (well fitted), and my assignment is joyful.”

If we’re not yoked with Jesus, we’ll likely find ourselves yoked with those following the the demands of anti-Christ forces like Dame Fashion of Madison Avenue, Lord Mammon of Wall Street and General Mars of the military-industrial complex. We will find ourselves yoked and choked to death with materialism, militarism, nationalism or whatever other ism that demands our allegiance, saps our energy and prevents us from living the good life God created us to live. 

The welcome word rest is like respite, renewal or refreshment, the word Jordan translates zest. The Aramaic word Jesus used would have been sabbat, or Sabbath, in which God was said to rest after six days of creation work. And according to the Fourth Commandment every man, woman, child, servant, and work animals is to take a regular "time out," a day off. 

In the Greek language Matthew used to write his gospel he chooses the word anapausa, from which we get our word “pause,” as in “the pause that refreshes.” We regularly need that as we keep on demonstrating, right here on earth, the way people are to live forever, and to pray and to live out God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven.

Another fitting New Testament metaphor for our intimate and faithful union with Christ is that of bridegroom and bride." Thus we might think of the Matthew 11 text as a kind of marriage proposal, which reminds me of the nineteenth century abolitionist Theodore Weld, in writing to his fellow activist fiancé, stated, "We join together, Angelina, not merely nor mainly to enjoy, but together to do and to dare, together to toil and testify and suffer... and [to be]happy beyond expression."

That's the "happily ever after" shalom the whole world needs.