“Remember the Prisoners”

Terrible events in Honduras and Mexico highlight the terrible state of criminal justice in this world. Thankfully, God will soon bring a government of real and effective justice.

“Remember the prisoners as if chained with them,” the Bible instructs us (Hebrews 13:3). The author of Hebrews may have been thinking of fellow Christians unjustly incarcerated and suffering terrible conditions. But the principle of praying for others includes praying for our enemies, so why not the many people in the world’s prisons? Many are there unjustly. Do we pray for them too?

Over the past few days, remembering prisoners has been easier—but not pleasant.

Horror in Honduras

First there was the gruesome tragedy at a prison in the Central American nation of Honduras. Last Tuesday night, Feb. 14, a fire broke out inside the Comayagua farm prison, located north of the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa. It was rumored that a prisoner may have set fire to his mattress; whatever the case, the fire burned rapidly and took the lives of some 355 terrified male inmates, some by suffocation and others by burning.

Reports gave indications of the horror. The overcrowded prison, built for 500 but housing some 856 inmates, became the scene of sheer terror as the prisoners struggled desperately to escape the burning death trap, locked in their cells and unable to avoid the flames. While rescuers desperately searched for keys to the locked cells, inmates screamed for help and ran for the bathrooms, in the futile hope that water from the showers would save them from the flames.

“Prisoners perished clutching each other in bathtubs and curled up in laundry sinks. ‘It was something horrible,’ said survivor Eladio Chica, 40, as he was led away by police Wednesday night, handcuffed, to testify before a local court about what he saw. ‘I only saw flames, and when we got out, men were being burned, up against the bars, they were stuck to them’” (CBC News).

Most of the Honduran inmates were detained under the strict Honduran antigang laws, but not convicted or tried at the time of their deaths. The prison lacked health care, and the Honduran prison budget reportedly allows less than $1 per prisoner per day for food.

“‘Conditions at Comayagua? I’d have to say among the worst in Honduras,’ said Ron W. Nikkel, president of Prison Fellowship International who visited the facility in 2005. ‘It was very congested, there’s not enough food, it’s dangerous and dirty’” (CBC News).

Riot and jail break in Mexico

Just a few days later, on Sunday, Feb. 19, a riot broke out in a Mexican prison in Apodaca, Nuevo León, home to incarcerated members of rival drug gangs. Reports are that 44 people died in violent encounters between members of the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel, turf rivals in the bitter and violent Mexican drug wars.

With the apparent acquiescence of guards and prison officials, members of the Zetas stormed the area that housed members of the Gulf Cartel, 44 of whom died at the hand of their rivals, who came armed with clubs, stones and sharp objects.

Some 30 prisoners then escaped the facility, with alleged complicity from prison officials. The prison’s director and 18 guards have now been removed and are under investigation.

It’s reported that nearly half of Mexico’s penitentiaries are overcrowded. “In Mexico, prison expert Jose Luis Musi said conditions remain ripe for more violence. ‘There are many factors,’ he said. ‘There is overpopulation, there is complicity and there is a lack of security’” (CNN).

Biblical justice didn’t include prisons

This doesn’t make for pleasant reading. Many prisons throughout the world are centers of misery, traps filled with human degradation, abuse, violence, corruption and denial of basic human rights. No wonder the Bible instructs us to remember the incarcerated and to pray for them!

Yet it never had to be so. A study of biblical principles of law and justice reveals something interesting. In Old Testament times, there was no provision for incarceration under the law of Moses. Fines, corporal punishment and capital punishment—as well as a benign system of short-term indentured servitude for paying off debts—were all prescribed in the Old Testament laws. But no imprisonment! Why?

The problem with prisons

Many readers of this blog will have visited prisons, and some may have been incarcerated. Some will have had the disquieting experience of visiting a high-security prison. Exposure to the prison system, be it in the industrialized nations of North America and Europe or in the more impoverished countries of the world, proves one cold, hard fact: Prisons don’t rehabilitate people. Rather they often harden and worsen their inmates, making them more cruel, more violent and more unlawful.

Hardened criminals with hardened criminals. The violent with the violent. The perverted with the perverted. The abusive with the abusive. It doesn’t work. Released former prisoners often come out worse, commit more crimes and end up back in prison.

For example, consider this report: “Seventy-four percent of California prison inmates ages 18 through 24 return to prison within three years, according to the corrections department report. That number is significantly higher than the rest of the population, which overall has a recidivism rate of 67.5 percent” (californiawatch.org, Nov. 8, 2010).

Overcrowding, corruption, miserable conditions, physical and sexual abuse—these all worsen the problem. Add to that not-infrequent miscarriages of justice, and you have the perfect picture of a dysfunctional system that doesn’t help.

Prophecies of a coming time of peace

Yet some time in the future—soon, we hope—this will all change. Speaking prophetically of the work of Jesus Christ the Messiah, the prophet Isaiah was inspired to write that He will “open blind eyes … bring out prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house” (Isaiah 42:7). Those who were imprisoned unjustly will be free. Those who were guilty will be given the opportunity to be truly reformed under God’s justice and mercy.

Isaiah also recorded, “That You may say to the prisoners, ‘Go forth,’ to those who are in darkness, ‘Show yourselves’” (Isaiah 49:9). God will send the Messiah “to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound” (Isaiah 61:1).

Let’s pray for the Creator to speed that day. And let’s not forget the advice of the book of Hebrews: “Remember the prisoners [whether Christians or not] as if chained with them—those who are mistreated—since you yourselves are in the body also” (Hebrews 13:3).

Ralph Levy is a minister of the Church of God, a Worldwide Association, who grew up in England and now lives in the United States. Dr. Levy enjoys reading, travel and foreign languages. He has a Ph.D. in biblical studies and has worked in foreign language and religious education for much of his life.

For more about today’s injustice and the coming just Kingdom of God, see:

• Casey Anthony, Justice and the U.S. Legal System
• Why All the Riots in the Streets?
• The Mystery of the Kingdom