Millions of dollars are about to be poured into a new prison facility in Lancaster County. This comes in addition to the millions of dollars that are already spent each year on “corrections.” But are prisons the solution to our crime problem? Is justice served by locking someone up in a cell? And is it the role of the state to “rehabilitate” criminals and “create better individuals”?
Prison Nation
The United States of America has the highest number of incarcerated individuals worldwide. Not only do we have more prisoners numerically, but we also have the highest proportion of our population in prison. Furthermore, according to the 11th edition of the World Prison Population list, the U.S. held over 20% of the world’s prisoners in 2015 even though the U.S. population represented under 5% of the world’s population.
Clearly, we have no lack of prisons in this nation.
But is the prison system helping? It is hard to argue that the prison system is making our streets safer and turning out ex-convicts better equipped to serve their neighbors. Recidivism rates continue to be a major problem in America. One government study indicated that of over 400,000 state prisoners released in 2005, over 1.9 million arrests were made over nine years. That’s an average of over 4 arrests per released prisoner. And the latest report from the Pa. Department of Corrections noted that 64.7% of released prisoners were re-arrested or re-incarcerated within three years of release. (That number is certainly higher after three years.)
In other words, the “correctional” system is not doing a very good job correcting. But as is ever the case, the civil government is not equipped to rehabilitate individuals, and thus, we keep filling our prisons at high rates, releasing inmates only to welcome them back after they stole, raped, or murdered again.
By What Standard?
At best, prisons keep criminals off the streets for a short time. At worse, they create a criminal class that views incarceration as a means to learn how to be better criminals. Unfortunately, the latter seems to be the unavoidable reality.
But we need to take a step back and ask a fundamental question: Is a prison sentence a just response to crime? In order to answer that question, we must look to our standard of justice. Humanists and atheists have little to offer here – for they have no transcendent basis of morality and justice. In fact, if justice is not determined by a supreme Lawgiver, then justice is simply a subjective preference. In an aimless universe, locking someone up behind bars for owning chemical substances or failing to pay the government is no more “unjust” than chopping off ears and noses.
However, the universe is not aimless, and justice is not a subjective preference. The Triune God of Scripture is the standard of justice, and he has laid out in his Word all that pertains to life and godliness – including matters of civil justice.
A More Excellent Way
The state has adopted the role of benevolent Nanny, convinced that she can turn out better citizens after a stint behind bars. Lancaster County Prison Warden Cheryl Steberger has said that she sees her role as creating a “better individual to put out into our community.”
But the state cannot do what it was not made for. God did not design the state to provide custody for criminal offenders. The biblical response to civil crime falls into three general categories: mercy, restitution, or execution.
Predominantly, the victim of a crime is the one empowered to demand restitution or extend mercy to the criminal. In the case of theft, restitution can be required by the victim (cf. Exodus 22:1-4). Requiring thieves to work, instead of being on the dole in a taxpayer-funded prison, honors God’s design for man – namely, taking dominion of the land. Such a model also puts “rehabilitation” in the proper realm: the family, church, and business. Requiring the thief to work truly gives him an opportunity to make amends and repent (at least in the societal sense). Prison sentences rob him of the ability to make restitution and inject him into a criminal pipeline that leads to more crimes and more prison sentences.
In the case of capital offenses, including incorrigibleness (i.e., repeat offenders and those with an obstinate unwillingness to make restitution; cf. Deut. 21:18-21), the state is authorized to bear the sword and execute criminals. Such a practice, unfortunate as it may be, not only serves justice to the offender, but also keeps citizens safe from dangerous miscreants, all without requiring the victim to pay for the criminal’s housing, upkeep, and “rehabilitation.”
Instead of applying the sound doctrine of biblical justice, our state has adopted a socialistic, welfare-state approach. Not only have we incentivized single-parent homes via welfare programs, but we have also adopted a perverted system of “justice” wherein the law-abiding citizens of the state become responsible for the misdeeds of the criminals.
But it gets worse.
Not only are we not correctly dealing with the crimes that God authorizes the state to deal with, but we are also creating manmade laws and filling our prisons with offenders against the state. Drug possession and tax evasion are two examples of how our humanistic state has created the very problem it tries to solve with prisons.
Drug possession may be immoral, but the state has not been authorized by God to criminalize it. If a drug addict murders someone, he should be executed, regardless of his “drug problem.” This would do far more to mitigate crimes and drug problems than prison sentences (cf. Ecclesiastes 8:11).
And as far as taxation is concerned, God’s Law-Word does not authorize the state to demand payment at the point of a sword (or a gun, in the case of modern-day IRS agents). We should pay our “taxes to whom taxes are owed,” but it does not follow that the state is authorized to force payment. (Just as a church is not authorized to force the payment of the tithe.)
The prison system is unknown to biblical law. It appears often in Scripture, but only in reference to pagan (Egyptian, Roman, etc.) civilizations or apostate rulers. The more excellent way is laid out for us in God’s inspired Word. But, alas, we have neglected the fountain of living water that is God’s Word and have hewed out humanistic cisterns which hold no water. Instead of justly dealing with crime, we are creating more problems, including a black market for drugs, an ever-increasing pipeline of career criminals, and a prison nation wherein the victims are forced to make restitution to the criminals for not providing them with the proper conditions to flourish.
Chris Hume is the host of The Lancaster Patriot Podcast and the author of several books, including Seven Statist Sins. He can be reached at info@thelancasterpatriot.com.
