Imprisoned by Poverty

I AM A CHRISTIAN. That means that I serve a savior who told us he came to free prisoners. At the same time, I live in a nation with more than 2 million prisoners, more than any country in the world.

I am also an affluent white person living in a country that unequally and selectively jails people of color and poor people. And I don’t just live in this country, I help govern it.

As a state representative in Michigan, I am responsible for this situation. The government directly chooses who goes to jail and who doesn’t. Of course, since our democracy practices government “of the people,” that makes all of us responsible for government actions.

How should Christians who are also citizens take action for justice in our law enforcement system? Responding to mass incarceration as Christians can seem daunting, but there are obvious places to begin. One of the clearest places our current system fails the test of equal treatment under the law is in the detention or release of those accused of, but not convicted of, a crime. At present, 49 states use some form of cash bail bond for accused people to gain pretrial release. Freedom comes with a cost—money must be deposited with the court or a hefty fee paid to bail-bond broker.

If a defendant cannot put up the cash, then they go to jail, while affluent defendants are released. For lack of a few hundred dollars, hundreds of thousands of people are held in U.S. jails because they’ve been accused of a crime and can’t pay the cash bond. Even a few days in jail means parents are unable to care for their children, and many lose their jobs or housing.

This is not a problem for members of my congregation or people I spend most of my time with. But we live in a nation where 57 percent of our citizens don’t know where they would find $500 if they suddenly had a need for that much money. Posting even a modest cash bond is a hurdle that more than half of our country can’t clear.

Liberty should not depend on wealth. Christians should act to correct this injustice. Our states should move away from cash bond release mechanisms and implement good risk-assessment tools for judges to use at arraignment. Our courts should assess whether a person is a safety or flight risk when detaining people, not sort citizens by their access to cash.

Some states are re-examining the cash bond system. In Illinois, California, New Jersey, Maryland, and now Michigan, substantive conversations are happening around cash bonds. In my state, the effort to work toward equal justice for cash-strapped citizens is bipartisan. A Republican colleague working with me owns a big restaurant. He is tired of having employees missing work because they are held in jail on small cash bonds.

In fact, everyone I talk to about this issue is receptive, once the problem is explained. This is a fiscal problem and a conflict with our democratic principles, but it is also a moral issue. I like to think that some of the bipartisan positive energy for change comes from faith values shared by politicians that aren’t defined by party.

Because I am a Christian, party identity and party loyalties are never my primary concern. As the prophet Micah put it, we must be about building a world where justice and reconciliation are one. Anyone who shares that agenda is my brother or sister, and anyone in need of the fruits of that agenda is my neighbor.