id you know that the U.S.

operates one of the largest

human zoo facilities in the
, world? ,I am referring to the prison
system in this country. Why is the
' prison system a human zoo? The
'analogyisobvious. Wekeepmenand
women penned in iron and cement
"cages" just like animals at our local
' zoo. One major
difference between
our human zoos and
our animal zoos is
, that at least the
animals are on
display. People go
to see them and give
them some ioving
intention. The
purpose of the
prison system is to
isolate criminals
from society, to put
'an insulating bllrrier
around them so that
they might be
reformed to be let
loose on society when their
"rehabilitation" has been completed.
Does this ingenious human system
work? Let us examine our analogy
again. living in a zoo may make an
animal docile after awhile, but it does
nbt "tattie" it, That is obvious by the
, very fact that yve do not release lions
and be!lrs to roam freely in the park
after they have been "rehabilitated" by
their cages for,a feW years. little more
,shoiild be expected from the prison
system. Puttingmehin iron cages does
nothing to "tame" them. In many cases
it only intensifies their evil.
A View of the Zoo
From the Inside
The prison system in this country
is a mess, and it does not take a genius
to see that our "correctional facilities"
!lre a sad joke. In some places, it has
become so bad that judges put petty
thieves on probation rather than send
them to prison where these small-time to simply accept it as a necessary evil.
operators might very well become big- After all, some might conclude, this is
time crooks with the training that they just one of the costs that has to be
can receive in these tax-financed borne in order to restrain crime. Yet,
"schools of crime." Inside, the prison we must ask whether our prison system
is a jungle where often men have to has done much restraining. Many
fight for their very lives. Those who do prisoners have openly admitted that
not conform to the "system" imposed they found themselves in prison
by their fellow prisoners (sometimes because they were sloppy in their lives
by paying protection money or of crime and had not perfected their
subjecting their bodies to homosexual
acts) can be hun or killed in prison
"accidents". Racial , violence,
homosexual gang rape and assault, use
of drugs, and revenge slayings are not
uncommon. Our "correctional '
institutions" have become centers of
violence and unspeakable savagery.
Witness the notorious riots in recent
times at Attica and New Mexico State
Penitentiary in which the "stool-
pigeons" and other non-conformists
were brutally murdered in revenge
slayings, After a period of such
enlightening education, our parole
boards unleash these caged humans
on our society with the sentimental
hope that they have seen the light
somehow.
The Prison
A Training School for Criminals
We have lived with the prison
system so long, perhaps we are prone
skills. , Through
mutual exchange of
ideas with one
another in prison,
where they have
plenty of idle time
to talk and think,
they will sharpen
their abilities so that
they do not make
the" same mistakes
again.
become
Prisons
literal
training grounds for
more professional
criminals. These
men become even
more hardened and
brutalized in having to endure the
system. Prisons do not restrain but
acrually foster crime.
Despite the cry from some to build
more and betterprisons (we are already
spending over $5 billion annually on
our prison system), crime in this
country continues to rise at an alarming
pace. According to recent statistics
which I read, every 3 seconds in the
U.S. a crime against property is
committed. That includes theft,
burglary, fraud, embezzlement, etc.
That is about 29,000 "minor" crimes a
day. In addition. a violent crime in
which a person is assaulted or killed is
committed in this country about every
30 seconds. Some 20,OOOmurdersare
committed every year in the U.s.
Murders have doubled approximately
in the last 15 years. These are frightful
statistics, To put this statistic into
more imaginable terms, we could say
22 T mE COUNSEL of Chalcedon T April, 1994
that about 112 of the population of
Bismarck, ND or 2/3 of the population
of Minot, ND is destroyed by savage
murder every year. In the whole
Vietnam War which lasted over a
decade, our country lost some 50,000
men. In three years time, Americans
willfully murder more people than we
lost in that entire war. This is staggering
to comprehend.
The Alternative-- Biblical Penology
It is quite plain that our present
system is doing velY little to actually
deter crime. Criminals no longer really
fear our system of justice.
In biblical law , prisons as we know
them and prison sentences are
unlmown. Prisonswerequitecommon
in the nations sun-ounding Israel, but
they were not a part of Israel's law
system. That of course was not the
result of the fact that all Israelites loved
God and kept His law from hearts
inspired with gratitude for His
goodness. It was because God in His
wisdom saw fit to restrain evil in society
in another way. We would do well in
our own nation to take note ofthis fact.
Deuteronomy 4:6, 8 holds up the law
of Israel as a model for the nations. If
crime) was quite simple. Its basic
plinciple was that of restitution. In
Exodus 22, this principle is affinned
again and again. In that passage, we
are given case law examples of how
Israel was to deal with certain climes.
For instance, if a thief stole a sheep, he
was to restore to the victim two sheep,
the one stolen and another (Ex. 22:4).
If the thief tlied to conceal the evidence
either by selling or killing the sheep,
he was responsible for four-fold
repayment to the owner (Ex. 22: 1).
The lisk of the thief was thereby
maXimized, and the expense of
Judges can in some cases be
bought. Courts are so jammed
that plea bargaining and
reduced sentencing are routine
matters. If in the rare case a
man is sent to plison, he only
learns to hone his skills to a
fine art. There must be a better
answer, and thankfully there
is. It is found in the last
resource that is usually
consulted when humans are in
trouble and need wisdom-
the Bible.
"Prie;one; are an ungodly cre-
ation of man. Ae; long ae;
prosecution and conviction for
the owner reduced. Under
biblical law , the thief would not
be thrown into plison to spend
his time in unproductive
idleness. Instead, he was forced
to compensate the victim of the
men pere;ie;t in being ungodly
by ignoring God in building
their own e;ocial order; they
will e;uffer the chaotic fruite;
crime for the trouble incurred.
This procedure very effectively
punished and chastened the thief
in his crime, and yet he remained
a productive member of society.
of their own evil e;ye;teme;."
What should we Christians do? I
maintain that we should not join with
those many conservatives Who are
crying for bigger and better prison
systems along with stiffer penalties
(Le. longer prison telms). Imagining
that man with a few more dollars can
build a better human zoo is about as
foolish as thinking that the federal
government is really going to someday
repay all the massive debt that it has
accumulated. Elephants can't swim
and neither can horses fly. Much less
can a human zoo be transfoffiled with
more tax dollars into a model
institution. Prisons are an ungodly
creation of man. As long as men
persist in being ungodly by ignOling
God in building their own social order,
they will suffer the chaotic fruits of
their own evil systems.
Israel would keep the law of God,
Moses said, even the heathen nations
would be forced to recognize the
surpassing wisdom of her ordinances.
Verse 8 makes it clear that no nation
with its humanly derived law could
match Israel's judicial system for
"lighteousness." The law of God's
people was a model standard of equity
and justice. Our modem climinolo-
gists have much to learn from the
SClipture. We Chlistians would do
well to realize that we have a
tremendous helitage of wisdom in the
Bible. Instead, we are ever so prone to
"baptize" the humanistic reasoning of
our culture as the way to do things, even
the Chlistian way of dealing with life.
Biblical Penology-- Restitution
The biblical system of penology
(the system to punish and prevent
Justice was fiffiland yet merciful.
Robbers were not treated as
animals to be put into cages, but
as responsible human beings who had
to bear the consequences of their sin.
God'sJustice vs. Man's Foolishness
Contrast the beauty of the biblical
system to our present day foolishness.
Our American system actually
subsidizes clime in valious ways. In
the Bible, the criminal pays for his
clime, but in America the victim or
society or both bear the burden. If a
climinal steals from someone's home,
the victim either bears the loss himself,
or if he is fortunate enough to have
insurance, he and the other
policyholders bear the cost of the theft
in higher insurance premiums. Some
legislators in state and federal
governments are now pushing for the
taxpayer to foot the bill for Clime by
having the government compensate
the victim of the crime. This proposed
April, 1994 THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon 23
method of equity would add billions
of dollars in costs to the government,
and the potential for abuse Is
astronomical. What would stop the
criminals and "victims" from getting In
cahoots to execute a crime only to split
the proceeds of the government
reimbursement? Then Inour sodety if
by some stroke .of "bad luck" the thief
is caught, convicted, and sentenced to
prison, it is the taxpayer again who is
taken for a ride. Not only must he foot
the bill for the crime through higher
insurance rates or government
restitution programs, but when the
thief is convicted and sentenced the
taxpayer must pay the enormous
expense of feeding, clothing, housing,
and guarding the criminal. The grim
irony of the whole situation is that if
the cost to the taxpayer of caring for
the prisoner was simply given to the
criminal in a cash payment, the thief
could live quite comfortably in freedom
as a retiree with a guaranteed Income.
Instead, we house him a cage-of O O l : e ~
domandsharpenhimintoactimeexpen.
It might seem that this nightmare
of humanistic creation is bad enough,
but the end has not been reached.
Many sociologists are now proposing
that society should actually make
reparation payments to the criminal!
After all, it is really society's fault .and
not the. criminal's that he went astray.
Society must atone for its supposed
guilt not only by making payments to
the victims of crime, but even to .its
perpetrators. Restitution has gone full
circle! Victims of crime are further
victimized through higher taxes so that
they can make restitution to the poor
bertighted criminals who robbed them.
Even now, many convicts (some of
whom are sentenced for life) are
bujlding rtice bank accounts in -prlsoft
from payments made to them by Sodal
Security and other federal progrllms
which pay them allowances for their
work. Lord, deliver us from the insane
asylum of human wisdom.
We must return to biblical law to
establish amodel, workable system for
meting out justice. Our present system
is In shambles. We Christians should
be the very first ones to direct our
society to the sanity of biblical law.
Either we will seek to apply biblical
standards to civil law and
jurisprudence, or we will simply by
default abdicate this area of
responsibility to unbelieving human-
ists to tinker with their godlessschemes
which rob us and destroy our sOdety.
Objections to God's
System ofJustice
Some might object that we must
have prisons. After all, what would we
do with the really hardened ctiminals
who commit murder or some other
high crime? The Bib Ie does no leave us
in the dark on that question. There
were a number of criminal offenses in
the society of Israel for which the
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death penalty was prescribed by God.
The state was to execute certain
criminals in the name of God. In fact ,
not to bring capital punishment on
certain criminals was not only not
being humane, but it was an offense to
God. God is angry with those who do
not punish criminals as He has
prescribed. Not to execute those
criminals who were deserving of capital
punishment actually polluted the land
in God's sight and brought down his
wrath upon its inhabitants (Numbers
35: 29-34).
Another similar objection which is
often heard is that the biblical law is
cruel. The famous lex talionis, the
principle of an eye for an eye and tooth
for a tooth etc., is often dted as an
example of outmoded biblical
barbarity. To apply this prindple in a
schlei, concluded on pg. 13
tithes without disregardingjustice and
the love of God, Lk. 11:42. He must
work six days for the glory of God and
rest one day,Lk 13:14. Hemustpray
at all times and not lose hean, Lk.
18: 1. He must obey God rather than
man, Act. 5:29. "Through many
Wbulations (he) must enter the
kingdom of God," Act. 14:22. He
must help the weak and rememberthe
words of Jesus that "it is more blessed
to give than to receive," Act. 20:35.
What Christ commands the Christian
to do, he is moved by love for Him to
do, he feels he MUST do gladly the will
of Christ His Savior and Lord. Are
these things you feel you MUST do?
Only Christ-like people feel this way.
The Hope for the Christian's Future
in the Submission of Christ
to the Divine "must" of
Decree and Revelation
The Christian possesses a confident
assurance, (hope), about the future.
He knows that the future belongs to
him, because he belongs to the Christ
who controls the future. He knows
that whatever the future holds it will
be good for him, because he knows
that Jesus Christ "MUST reign until
He has put all His enemies under His
feet," I Cor. 15:24f. It is inevitable that
all enemies and oppressors of the
people of God, all those who oppose
the revealed will of the Lord Christ will
be put down. Praise God for His
divine "MUST"! Q
schlei, continued from pg. 24
literal fashion is to misunderstand
that law. It is to no more be taken
literally than when Jesus said if our eye
causes us to stumble into sin, we should
pluck it out. We know Jesus did not
mean for us to take Him in a literal
fashion for to dismember one's body
would violate the law of God. (sixth
commandment) What Jesus demands
of us in most graphic language is that
we take drastic action if necessalY to
avoid sin, We must not toy with
temptation but do everything in our
means even at our own inconvenience
and hun, if necessary, to avoid evil.
Likewise, we lmow that the lex
talionis is not to be understood in a
simplistically literal fashion, for such a
judicial rendering would violate the
principle of restitution in the law. If
one were to maliciously cut off
another's hand, it would not help the
victim if the evil doer simply had his
hand removed. A criminal minus one
hand could not velY well repay his
victim for he would not be so readily
employable. The principle of lex
talionis simply stresses that there must
be eqUity in law administration. No
longer could men be able to brag that
wrong done to them would be avenged
77 fold (Gen.4:24). If a man clUelly
cut off the hand of his neighbor, he
could not be killed as a penalty. Yet, he
might for instance have to suffer the
penalty of whipping and being forced
to support the victim with a monetary
payment for the rest of his life for the
lost opportunities in his regular
profession. In Islamic law, for an
example, a thiefis punished by having
his hand cut off. That quite effectively
restrains theft, but it is a punishment
that by biblical standards is unjust.
We as Christians must be quick to
defend the wisdom of God's law and
never leap on the bandwagon of its
critics.
Many Christians breathe a sigh of
relief when in Matthew 5:38-39,Jesus
seems to abrogate the supposed
barbaric principle of lex talionis.
Nothing could be funher from the
truth. The principle of fair
administration of justice and
punishment could never be abrogated,
and] esus made it clear that His attitude
was one of highest respect for the Old
Testament law (Matthew 5:17-20).
Jesus, instead, was attacking the
common misconceptions and
misapplications of God's law in His
day. The Pharisees and their followers
used this law as the principle for their
personal revenge, so that they could
give tit-for -tat to those who harmed
them. A law which was meant to be
a guide to judges in rendering
judicial decisions and handing
down sentences was never meant
to be a rule of our personal
relationships. The function of civil
government is to administer the
vengeance of God upon evildoers,
but not individuals. Our duty is to
love our neighbor as Jesus said.
A Radical Proposal
My proposal to do away with the
prison system may sound radical. My
proposal that the criminal should be
forced to make restitution for his crime
may at first reading sound absurd. My
proposal that the death penalty should
be reinstituted for many crimes may
even sound non-Christian in our day
and age. Let us ask the question in a
different way. Can the law of God
given to Israel, which was to be a
model to the nations, be radical,
absurd, or non-Christian? The answer
should be obvious. This is only one
small but very im portant area that
we Christians should be working
to restructure our society to the
glory of God.
If we have any doubts about the
wisdom and goodness of God's law,
just take a good hard look at the
present-day fruits of man's judicial
system. No amount of money and
tinkeling and human blilliance will
redeem a social disaster. God's word
provides the building blocks which
can reconstlUct broken human lives
and devastated societies. We need not
look elsewhere for another
foundation.Q
April, 1994 TIlE COUNSEL of Chalcedon t- 13