Executive Director’s 2022 THOR Gala Statement
21 years ago, I knew absolutely nothing about the matter of Mass Incarceration. In fact, my ignorance was so profound I actually believed people were in prison or jail because, you know, well, that’s where criminals go.
20 years ago, my ignorance came to an abrupt end when my own son was arrested on 2 felony-and-1-misdemeanor charges during his senior year in college—and I tell you this with my son’s encouragement and blessing.
First came the phone call informing me of his arrest. A few days later, my former husband and I are sitting face to face with the attorney engaged to defend our son—recommended to us by the friend of a friend. He told us the impact a felony conviction could have on our son’s life and future, explained the social and state-constructed barriers that existed—which are strategically-placed stumbling blocks—and described the stigma and outcast-status associated with the term ‘felon.’ And as he was speaking what I later came to know was truth, I can remember blinking a lot, because I was trying not to cry, and praying in my mind, “Lord, please help us.”
But the image I’ve held in my mind all these years is that of my son sitting in front of me, behind a layer of plexi-glass, wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, slouched in an orange plastic chair, holding the phone up to his right ear, as he tried to look brave. In the background behind him, one level below, was an open, circular lounge area filled with other-mothers’ and fathers’ sons. Some of the young men were just walking around in circles, a couple of guys were sitting on a sofa staring at a television mounted about 15 feet in the air, a small group was hanging around the one pay phone—waiting for their turn to make a call—and the rest were just leaning against the walls, doing absolutely nothing.
I’d never seen anything like it before in my life—and it would take me a little longer to learn there were places just like it for women.
Ten years after that plexi-glass moment, I was working on my Doctor of Ministry degree, concentrating on “Prisons, Public Policy and Transformative Justice”. It was an education that allowed me to examine the criminal justice system more closely, and it provided multiple opportunities for me to speak to groups of prisoners and one-on-one with incarcerated individuals—including Cyntoia Brown (unmarried at the time), and the man who prosecuted her. Theirs is a story of grace and redemption if ever I heard one.
For ten years I buried myself in the 5th chapter of the Gospel of Mark, trying to better understand why the community members in the story were so-o-o amenable and agreeable to the idea of spending money again and again to buy shackles and chains in order to keep a man locked up—but were disinclined and unprepared to spend what it took to address the man’s environmental constraints and the health conditions tormenting, afflicting and provoking him—a man many in that community viewed as ‘unclean’ and undeserving of anything better.
For ten years I imagined, reimagined and dreamed about what it means to have “one’s crimes wiped away like a cloud and one’s offenses turned into a mist in the sky,” as described by the Prophet Isaiah (chap. 44, verse 22)—and during those 10 years I learned 3 critical and irrefutable truths about criminality:
1. The first truth is that the shade of one’s skin color absolutely matters when it comes to imprisonment, sentencing or being released—but money is king.
Prayers notwithstanding, it took hard, cold cash to gain my son’s release. Money to pay for the attorney, transportation across 4 states, hotel stays, fines imposed by the court—and let me rush to add that if his father had not been able or willing to provide the money—because I didn’t have it to give—it’s almost certain our son would have become a plea-bargain statistic, because that’s generally what happens to those who don’t have the financial means necessary to try and buy one’s way out of going to prison or jail.
2. The second truth is, we’re all criminals—but not all criminals go to prison or jail. And if you feel offended by what I’ve just said, or feel justified denying your criminal status on the grounds you’ve never been arrested, convicted or imprisoned, here is what I would encourage you to consider: that tax form submitted to the IRS which was, in fact, not entirely truthful (a federal crime known as tax fraud)…the illegal U-turn made because no one else was around to see you do it…speeding above the posted limit…taking items from work without permission…that act or acts of adultery (a felony in some states and a misdemeanor in others), the child and domestic violence going on behind closed doors…hiding a co-worker’s or colleague’s wrongdoing. And these are just a few of the crimes being committed on a daily basis by the smiling face we meet in the mirror, or pass by on the street every day.
The human instinct is to rank crime the way some rank sin—as if one type of wrongdoing has a more favorable status before God than another—but if we are honest with ourselves, it’s not much of a stretch to concede that, by definition of the word, a person who commits a crime is a criminal, no more or less than a person who commits a sin is a sinner—using the language of the church.
3. The third truth is, there really is a difference between an ‘inmate’ and a ‘convict’. During a question and answer session following a guest lecture by Professor Rev. Dr. Harold Trulear of Howard University School of Divinity, I asked him why he used the words ‘inmate’ and ‘convict’ as though they were different, and this was his response: “They are different. Convicts are people for whom crime is a lifestyle. They leave prison with the intention of coming back. Convicts are thugs, and prison is home. An inmate,” he went on to say, “is a regular [person] who just fucked up”—and his differentiation and clarity helped guide the development of THOR’s resident criteria.
In 2014, I witnessed an inmate at the Tennessee Prison for Women generate a very meaningful conversation by asking a very provocative and thoughtful question: “What might prisons look like if they were healthy and healing communities?” THOR then tweaked the question to ask: “What might a healthy and healing reentry-housing program look like?” and after studying the feedback-loop between ‘housing’ and ‘employment’ and pouring over data from my surveys, first-person interviews and conversations with prisoners and non-prisoners alike, the feedback-loop between a stable home environment and a successful and healthy life post-prison was confirmed…leading to THOR’s mission of “addressing the long-term residential needs of individuals transitioning out of prison.”
And by “transitioning” we mean the day an insider—or prisoner—is released—often with much of nothing in his or her pocket—and placed back into a community of people who expect him or her to succeed according to the rules, policies and standards of success put in place by people in the community who don’t see themselves as criminals. Some of whom are even bold enough to wonder out loud, “How dare a felon come out with the lofty goal of living well?”
THOR uses the term ‘home’ rather than ‘housing’ to describe our reentry work because ‘home’ satisfies so much more than just the technical problems of where to find shelter or a place to eat, sleep and temporarily store one’s possessions. One of the primary goals for our residents—which we expect our residents to share—is economic freedom, defined by THOR as “the financial freedom affording one the opportunity to choose from a larger set of choices”, and this is achieved using 2 protracted steps:
First, by lowering the national income-to-housing-cost-burden ratio from 50-60 percent down to 20 percent—with an ultimate goal of 12 percent—which has the immediate effect of making more discretionary money available for ‘necessity’ spending (food, child care, insurance, utilities, fuel, auto repairs, funding a savings account, and so on. And this transformative change makes the difference between mere survival, and being able to enjoy at least a few of the pleasurable things life has to offer.
The second step involves promoting and teaching a ‘needs-based’, or simplistic-living lifestyle, as residents concentrate on learning and practicing how to give up what they no longer need or want, in order to obtain, keep and achieve what they do. By partnering and working with like-minded community colleagues and supporters, our residents are also able to tap into the additional support services they may need.
Rather than restorative justice, which emphasizes reparation, reconciliation, and an individual’s responsibility to repair the harm caused by their criminal behavior, THOR approaches the work of reentry guided by the ideology of ‘transformative’ justice—or ‘doing’ justice in such a way that it leads to a productive change in the thinking, speech, behavior and actions of both the community and those reentering it. THOR is also guided by the principle of hesed—which has been described by some as a covenant love which cannot be broken…either by those who cannot find it in themselves to forgive the wrongs done to them or others, or by those who have harmed others to such a degree they can never restore what was taken or lost.
The selection of our name—The House of Redemption—was guided by an ‘insider’ who asked whether houses of worship could display a symbol, or name, that would instantly be recognizable to ‘former-insiders’ as a place where one’s past would not be held against them. While THOR is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, rather than a church, I immediately recognized that what they were describing was a place of redemption—which literally means the slate has been wiped clean and a person is free to try again to get it right. The physical, tangible, hands-on home, The House of Redemption, is meant to be a very visible reminder that God’s redemptive love is indeed quite real.
Lastly, THOR’s foundation is built on Jesus of Nazareth—Yeshua of Nazareth to be more correct—who spent His energy walking from town to town telling everyone he met about Somebody who could save anybody and handing out pardons to the guilty along the way, along with the assurance that where they’d been and what they’d done no longer mattered. And in return for His kindness, He was profiled, arrested, tried in a court ruled by a biased judge, convicted—in part because of untruthful, or maybe confused, witnesses—and executed as a criminal for crimes He did not commit.
I invite each of you to follow THOR at thehouseofredemption.org, hope you will consider becoming a supporter of our work, and thank all of you for coming this evening.
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