Support the AME Council of Bishops Working Group on Criminal Justice

Call to Action from the AME Council of Bishops Working Group on Criminal Justice The Council of Bishops of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, led by its Ad Hoc Working Group on Criminal Justice, seeks your input on how the AME Church can more directly respond to the stark racial inequities that exist within the criminal legal system in the United States. Specifically, the Working Group is exploring ways to address mass incarceration, racialized prosecutions, and the disproportionate impact that the criminal legal system has on Black communities.  In furtherance of its efforts, the Working Group seeks to catalog AME members from whom to seek input. The Working Group especially seeks input from court-involved persons, formerly incarcerated individuals, prosecutors, public defenders, probation officers, civil rights lawyers, judges, policymakers, and others. If any of the above describes you, please complete this survey The Council of Bishops looks forward to working with you and mobilizing the global church around this important issue. Richard Allen and Jarena Lee were abolitionists. Social sin compelled them prophetically to engage the institution of slavery while simultaneously healing the wounds on the enslaved.  History has called on us again to cry aloud, spare not, and be priests for those in bondage. More Black people are under the control of the criminal justice system today than were enslaved in 1850. Slavery evaded complete abolition. Instead, it coercively moved from the plantation to the prison. The 13th Amendment states that slavery is still legal if someone is duly convicted. Black people are six more likely to be incarcerated than our white counterparts. Many of the incarcerated are there due to the War on Drugs waged to destroy Black civil rights progress and elicit southern segregationist’s political support. The data shows that Blacks use and sell drugs less than whites but are given longer sentences for the same crimes and have fewer financial resources to evade conviction. We are left like the prophet Isaiah to ask, “Why are my people enslaved again?” (52:5 NLT). The prison industrial complex is the new slave trade, where Black bodies receive price tags and chains. A multibillion-dollar private prison industry has flourished by influencing legislators to keep its beds filled. Prisons are often abusive, neglect health, unsanitary, and inflict touchless torture (solitary confinement). People who survive prison live constrained lives like our ancestors, subject to Jim Crow laws. They can no longer vote, get viable employment, or public assistance. The stigma of incarceration serves as a new caste system that shuns the formerly incarcerated into a world where an underground economy is the only accessible means of survival. But like the Psalmist, we know that “the Lord hears the needy and does not despise his own that are in bonds.” (69:33 NRSV). The mass incarceration crisis creates a new Divine mandate for the church of Allen, one in which we reimagine and redefine our ministries in the context of our abolitionists’ roots. Like Richard Allen and Jarena Lee, we must minister to our own who are in bonds and prophetically engage the unjust justice system. The writer of Lamentations serves as a guide, When all the prisoners of the land are crushed under foot, when human rights are perverted in the presence of the Most High, when one’s case is subverted—does the Lord not see it? (3:34-36 NRSV) in faith and hope, Rt. Rev. Francine A. Brookins, Esq. Presiding Prelate, 18th Episcopal District African Methodist Episcopal Church   Bishop Adam J. Richardson, Senior Bishop Bishop Anne Henning Byfield, President, COB Bishop Ronnie E. Brailsford, Secretary Bishop Francine A. Brookins, Esq, Chair  Click here to take the AME Church Mass Incarceration Survey.

Not on our list? Join Here The News Digest contains selected articles from the newspaper.  Click below to get full access! Buy Here

Share Tweet Forward The Christian Recorder is the official newspaper of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the oldest continuously produced publication by persons of African descent.   Bishop David R. Daniels, Jr., Chair of the General Board Commission on Publications Rev. Dr. Roderick D. Belin, President/Publisher of the AME Sunday School Union Mr. John Thomas III, Editor of The Christian Recorder Copyright © 2022 The Christian Recorder, All rights reserved.