What is it about “It’s not working” that we don’t understand?

I was chatting with one of our board members on camera, working on a publicity video for HUMANITY FOR PRISONERS. Marla Mitchell-Cichon, recently retired director of the Cooley-WMU Innocence Project, made this startling statement: “We’re going to have to get rid of the prison system (as we know it)! It doesn’t work! It never worked!" 

She pointed out that the goal of incarceration is to reform, so that those who are released will become productive members of society. She insisted that this is NOT what the prison system is doing! 

On May 3, the Kalamazoo County Bar Association presented its Liberty Bell Award to SaConna Johnson in its annual Law Day event. Ms. Johnson is the Head Client Advocate at Kalamazoo Defender, a non-profit public defender office. This public defender office provides legal representation within the court system, and through its care hub hooks up clients with social services. 

In her acceptance speech, she bluntly informed some 50 local attorneys including the county prosecutor, the county public defender, several state judges and at least one federal judge, that the legal system is broke. She said, “I know you think it needs improvement, but that’s not the case.” She stressed that it’s simply not working. 

HFP Executive Director Mark Hartman and I were the featured speakers. 

In relating details about how HUMANITY FOR PRISONERS got started, I told the Maurice Carter story. That was a wrongful conviction case described at the time, by the directors of three prominent Innocence Projects, as one of the worst they had ever seen! Yet, Maurice served 29 years for a crime he did not commit. 

Mark Hartman explained the story of his 12-year sentence. An upright citizen who had never been in trouble with the law prior to his arrest, Mark said: “I believed in the justice system, and I held fast to my blind faith that the truth would win out...that it would set matters straight...that justice would somehow prevail. I quickly became disillusioned. As the years of my incarceration unfolded, I discovered that the real contest was a suppression of the facts and the truth.” 

Marla Mitchell-Cichon reminds that we have international examples of how to do it right. Norway's criminal justice system, for example, focuses on rehabilitation and restorative justice, rather than punishment. It’s a model for all the world to see. 

The voices of the people whom I quote---SaConna, Marla, Mark and Doug---may be small, and the size of the audience may have been minimal, but the message is huge! 

May God give the system ears to hear!



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