“Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.” — Luke 23:43
Recent news flashes about convicted murderers in Maine prisons seeking special accommodations for their transgender needs play to a broader theme in both state and national news, but they also miss an important point. April, the month when Christians celebrate Easter and the resurrection of Jesus, is Second Chance month.
Christ was clear in his thinking on second chances. Not only did he show mercy, compassion and a kindred spirit to those crucified beside him on Calvary as the passage in Luke reflects, but in Matthew 18:22, he corrects Peter who suggested one should forgive another seven times but seventy times seven times — in other words, without measure.
Today twenty states across the country have signed proclamations declaring April as Second Chance Month. While Maine is not one of them, in the future perhaps it will join their ranks. Currently over two and a half million Americans are incarcerated — a ten-fold increase from before the 1994 bipartisan crime bill signed into law when Joe Biden chaired the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Plenty of those behind bars belong there, whether to keep society safe from their predations and/or to be punished for their crimes. But there are also plenty who got a bad break, had inadequate counsel, or simply faced the daunting odds of prosecutors who enjoy conviction rates of over 90 percent. From what is written, there is little evidence Christ wanted us to split hairs.
Some years ago, I had my own brush with the criminal justice system. At the time, I pleaded guilty to a felony that America’s current attorney general has since instructed her criminal division to stop treating as a crime on the first day of her tenure — essentially it amounted to not filling out a form. But that’s less important than what I saw during a process that ultimately demeans and humiliates a human being.
One of the reasons Donald Trump was elected to another term last fall is because when he said the system is rigged, that resonated with an awful lot of people. Many of those who voted for him believed the justice system had been weaponized against him. A good number of people who would not ordinarily vote for a Republican, or a white billionaire for that matter, thought: look, they’re doing to him what they’ve done to us since time immemorial.
[RELATED: How Trump Can Flip the Script on His Conviction]
For justice to have meaning, and the concept of rehabilitation to be pegged on more than empty words, we have to move beyond the notion of eternal punishment. When those who have been found guilty of a crime have served their time, they deserve a second chance. April is a fine time to recognize this given the fact that even beyond the Christian calendar it is a time of renewal.
There will always be heinous crimes that shock the conscience, just as there are dangerous individuals whose re-entry into society poses a source of genuine concern. But there are at least an equal, and arguably greater, number who made mistakes and have paid for them. When our blood races at the thought of the first category, we need to be careful not to forget the second.
Criminal justice reform is long overdue, and it is a broad subjects with myriad dimensions that range from questions about selective enforcement of law and prosecution of crime to genuine due process to fairness in sentencing and how to handle re-entry. All of these pose perennial challenges. The point of Second Chance month is simpler:
For those who are so-inclined, it is a time to prayerful about those deserving God’s grace and redemption. For everyone else, a moment’s quiet contemplation about forgiveness may just be enough.
