Prison

No prisons!

If ever there was a powerful indicator of freedom, it would be the number of people in prison; that is, the lack thereof. Alas, this is an indicator where the United States is failing miserably. At the moment, the U.S. has one of the world’s highest prison populations. Over 2 million Americans are inprisoned! We need to either fix this or change our national anthem. We are no longer the land of the free and the home of the brave. In fact, the U.S. has become guilty of quite a few human rights violations.

At the moment, some of the solutions to this problem are being advocated more by pagans than Christians. This is not because the Bible calls for the large amount of jailing advocated by many Christians, but because on certain issues the pagans are acting more Christian than many Christians!

1. If a man shall steal an ox, or a sheep, and kill it, or sell it; he shall restore five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep.

2. If a thief be found breaking up, and be smitten that he die, there shall no blood be shed for him.

3. If the sun be risen upon him, there shall be blood shed for him; for he should make full restitution; if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.

4. If the theft be certainly found in his hand alive, whether it be ox, or ass, or sheep; he shall restore double.

5. If a man shall cause a field or vineyard to be eaten, and shall put in his beast, and shall feed in another man's field; of the best of his own field, and of the best of his own vineyard, shall he make restitution.

6. If fire break out, and catch in thorns, so that the stacks of corn, or the standing corn, or the field, be consumed therewith; he that kindled the fire shall surely make restitution.

7. If a man shall deliver unto his neighbour money or stuff to keep, and it be stolen out of the man's house; if the thief be found, let him pay double.

8. If the thief be not found, then the master of the house shall be brought unto the judges, to see whether he have put his hand unto his neighbour's goods.

9. For all manner of trespass, whether it be for ox, for ass, for sheep, for raiment, or for any manner of lost thing which another challengeth to be his, the cause of both parties shall come before the judges; and whom the judges shall condemn, he shall pay double unto his neighbour.

--Exodus 22

The Bible calls for no jails! And this is not just because the Old Testament calls for the death penalty for many offenses. For a great many crimes, the Old Testament is far more lenient than U.S. law. And this is without any resort to the calls for forgiveness found in the New Testament.

Consider the case of theft. A thief was not automatically confined. Restitution was sufficient. The amount depended on what was stolen. It was 5-1 for cattle, 4-1 for sheep, if the animals in question were killed. [Ex 22:1-9] Otherwise paying back double was sufficient. Paying back double was sufficient for other theft in general.

That’s it!

Compare this with “30 days for shoplifting,” or the jail sentence recently handed out to Martha Stewart. In either case, paying back double would be sufficient under Biblical law. It is only in the case where the thief does not have the funds to make restitution is there further punishment. In this case the thief was to be sold.

Ah! You might say. Being sold is the same as imprisonment!

7. If there be among you a poor man of one of thy brethren within any of thy gates in thy land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not harden thine heart, nor shut thine hand from thy poor brother:

8. But thou shalt open thine hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need, in that which he wanteth.

9. Beware that there be not a thought in thy wicked heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and thine eye be evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought; and he cry unto the Lord against thee, and it be sin unto thee.

10. Thou shalt surely give him, and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him: because that for this thing the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thy works, and in all that thou puttest thine hand unto.

11. For the poor shall never cease out of the land: therefore I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land.

12. And if thy brother, an Hebrew man, or an Hebrew woman, be sold unto thee, and serve thee six years; then in the seventh year thou shalt let him go free from thee.

13. And when thou sendest him out free from thee, thou shalt not let him go away empty:

14. Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy winepress: of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee thou shalt give unto him.

--Deuteronomy 15

15. Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee:

16. He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him.

--Deuteronomy 23

No, it was not. Inability to pay back restitution was just another debt. Let us look at the rules for debt servitude. Servitude could be no longer than six years [Ex 21:2, Deut. 15:12]. Other parts of the Law list every seven years as a year of release [Deut 15:1, 31:10]. So much for “three strikes and you are out” leading to life imprisonment. Yes, six years is a long time, but this was not imprisonment. It was more like serfdom. A married servant brought his family with him [Ex. 21:3]! No crowded jail cells with rampant homosexual rape! No wives and children deprived of support.

Yes, servitude could be harsh. Masters did have the right to corporal punishment [Ex 21:21]. This punishment was limited. Excess, such as knocking out a tooth or eye resulted in freedom for the servant [21:26] and killing a servant was punishable [21:20]. That said, debt servants were not to be treated as outright slaves [Lev 25: 37-43], but as employees. Skeptics might dismiss this quote as a feel-good statement, easily ignored. They would be right but for this provision: it was illegal to return an escaped slave to his master [Deut. 23:15]!

One might ask why anyone would remain a servant if escape were legal. Remember, that such servitude was limited to those who could not pay. For someone with that degree of poverty, servitude might be preferable to homelessness [see Ruth chapter 2]. Further, at the end of one’s term of service, the master was to supply wealth on the way out – capital for starting afresh [Deut 15:12-15]. Compare that to how we dump prisoners out on the street with little choice other than poverty or returning to a life of crime.

We have only touched the surface as to why we have so many people in jail, and why our crime rate is so high. Thieves and death row inmates are only a fraction of our excess jail population. There is another cause, one which has beginnings nearly a century ago, but began to take off during the Reagan years. According to the Bureau of Justice, we have gone from about 320,000 people in prison in 1980 to 1.4 million in 2003.

Prison

Further Reading