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In this episode, Latasha Morrison interviews author Dominique Gilliard about his book Rethinking Incarceration: Advocating for Justice that Restores.
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Host & Executive Producer – Latasha Morrison
Senior Producer – Lauren C. Brown
Producer, Editor, & Music – Travon Potts with Integrated Entertainment Studios
Assistant Producer – Sarah Connatser
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This transcript is ai generated and has not been checked for errors.
0:00
So this next series of podcasts that we’re going to bring to you, on sounds of Justice are pre-recorded interviews that we did with authors that we found, we found that would be very helpful in equipping you towards racial healing.
So the first voice that we’re going to bring to you today will be Dominique Gillard.
0:20
He is a wonderful young man, and he’s the director of racial righteousness and Reconciliation for the love.
Mercy do justice initiative of the Urkel Covenant Church, he is the author of rethinking incarceration and advocating for justice that restores.
0:38
Which one the 2018 book of the Year award for intervarsity.
Press Gillard also serves as the board of directors for the Christian Community Development Association and evangelicals for justice.
In 2015, he was selected as one of the ecc’s 40 under 40 liters to watch.
1:00
And he’s, he’s also written articles that were featured in The Huffington Post and you can find more about Dominic Gillard at Dominic Geller.com.
So enjoy this conversation on rethinking incarceration.
1:23
You’re listening to sounds of Justice, a be the bridge podcast.
There’s a lot of people who are part of our be the Bridge Community who have actually written books.
And so, we want to highlight those voices.
1:40
Those voices that are involved in, be the bridge and they have written a book and the book.
It correlates with our mission and our vision for be the bridge.
And so the first person we’re going to talk to today is dominant Gaillard, he wrote a book called rethinking incarceration and so Dominic was has been really involved in the be the Bridge Community within the Facebook group.
2:06
I’ll just tell you this, he told me probably maybe a few months ago know, probably about a year ago actually.
He said sister more power to you.
You, you know, I’m writing this book.
I’m not going to be as vocal within that group because we know the group can be pretty tough, but we’re thankful for his voice.
2:26
Doing the early phases, of be the bridge, the be the bridge group.
I’m Dominic he is the director of racial righteousness and Reconciliation for the love.
Mercy, do justice initiative of the Evangelical.
2:43
Covenant Church.
He serves on the board of directors for the Christian Community Development, Association and Eve, Elgin Evangelical for justice and 2015, he was selected as one of the ecc’s 40 under 40 leaders to watch.
3:01
You’ve seen him with in The Huffington Post, he was named one of the black Christian leaders changing the world.
He’s an ordained minister.
He served as a pastoral minister in Atlanta Chicago and Oakland.
3:17
He was the executive pastor of New Hope, Covenant Church in Oakland California and also served as an oak served in Oakland As an associate pastor of the convergence Covenant Church.
He Also was a campus minister at North Park University and the ratio righteous director for ecc’s Ministry initiatives in the Pacific, Southwest Conference with articles published in the ccda theological journal.
3:48
And so many other things, he’s earned.
A bachelor’s degree in African-American studies from Georgia State University and a master’s degree in history, from East Tennessee, State University, With the emphasis on Race gender and class in the United States.
4:07
He also earned a m.div from North Park Seminary and where he served as an Adjunct.
Professor teaching Christian ethics, Theology and Reconciliation.
You know, I know, one of the things about your bucket, you know, one of the things you said at the book provides a historical analysis of mass incarceration and a Biblical basis for Reframing how we teach and preach about Justice.
4:35
And, you know, IMA just this girl, and I love to talk about Justice and your book.
I don’t know if you guys I want to show you this.
If you haven’t actually purchase this, we want you to purchase this book.
I think there’s a link that Elizabeth posted in the invite where you guys can go and post this.
4:55
I think you’re in your second.
Are you in your second print of this?
I am.
Yeah, okay, yeah, he’s in the second print.
So that’s great.
He said, so we want to make sure he gets into his tent print, right?
So, you know, dominant, just tell everyone just a little bit about yourself.
5:15
I’m already gave your bio but just tell us, where are you living?
Now, what are you doing?
And then we’ll just jump into everything.
Yeah, so I’m in Chicago right now.
Born and raised in metro Atlanta area through undergrad went to undergrad at Georgia State University where I did a double major in history and African-American studies went up to the Appalachian mountain region after that, I did a master’s in US history and then what, to Chicago for Seminary table at the Seminary?
5:51
Then left to go to Oakland to serve as congregational pastor at two different multi-ethnic Arches.
And then came back to Chicago, to take this National role as the Director of racial righteousness and Reconciliation for the Evangelical Covenant Church, right?
6:07
And you so you’re a product of the Atlanta.
The a, yeah, if yeah, right?
You’re in your mom.
She she is, she’s a pastor in the bluff community, so right downtown by the Dome.
6:23
Okay, great.
Great.
I know another Pastor to Stalin that are Riya.
Yeah, so great.
So now I want to find out what was the I know for.
Even for me there’s always I know a lot of this we can see the threads of what God was doing in your life.
6:41
You know?
If you count back to high school middle school you can see some of the threads but that thing to get you to step out and write this book and to actually, I think before you wrote the book, you were actually doing presentations on this subject already.
6:57
D, you know.
Yeah.
And so the book came from your presentation.
What was the catalytic event that really caused you to say, you know what, I’m gonna write a book about it.
I know we will talk a little bit about the difference between your book and the new Jim Crow and just mercy and all that, what was that catalytic event for you?
7:19
That really prompted you to write this book.
Yeah.
So the broadest answer is well, the broadest answer for, we’re really compelled me to write the book is to churches silence on the matter, but I think the particular catalytic moment for me was my senior year and undergrad.
7:39
There was a case that happened 10 miles away from my campus, where a community was jurisdiction of Lee’s own, there’s a no-knock warrant Community, which is a community where officers don’t have to play a warm before invading the premise of a house and the logic behind no-knock warrants is that they’re given and communities, their stigmatizes epicenters for drug trafficking.
8:03
And so Officer says that they need to be able to invade the premise quickly before people can destroy drugs and drug paraphernalia.
And so, in this case, there was a community that was owned as such an officer had said, he had been staking out a house for a couple months and knew that it was part of Epicenter or drug trafficking in the community.
8:25
And so him, and two other officers invaded the house at 3:00 in the morning, what without uniforms and didn’t display a warrant when they invaded the house, they invaded it with their guns drawn and they ultimately deploy 39 bullets and fatally struck.
8:43
The resident of the house.
Who was a 92 year old grandmother by the name of Captain Johnston.
They fatally struck her five times, she died in Cold Blood and Her living room.
And after they searched the house, there were no drugs nor any drug paraphernalia in the entire house.
9:01
So the three officers freaked out, how did the Paddle Wheel agenda mate?
What just transpired and so they conspire to cover up their transgressions by planting drugs throughout her house.
So they plant that I remember this being from Atlanta being living in Atlanta, when this happened, I was actually living here and it was just the weirdest case where you’re saying, enough, D to your old woman had drugs in her home as and I remember all the controversy about the case and just tell us you know you I know you go on in your book to talk about this case but tell us you know like what came out of this particular case what Miss Katherine Johnson.
9:42
Yeah so the officers they came to a story and they stuck to it and they basically lied about everything that transpired and Continued to lie after the case went to court.
And it wasn’t until they realize that they were caught red-handed, that they finally confessed to everything and knowledge that they lie that they planted drugs and they did the whole nine.
10:06
And what was most disturbing was that the officers when they were sentenced after?
They’ve confessed to everything, did a fraction of the time, the captain Johnston would have done if she actually had a been involved in the drug trafficking and gotten arrested by those officers.
And so my my professors That, you know, as concerned citizens in my African-American studies program, we had an ethical and moral responsibility to go and advocate for vulnerable people, and communities, like Captain, Johnston.
10:34
And then we had an ethical responsibility to step up and make our voices heard.
And I was like, yeah, that’s true, that’s good.
That’s right.
But then I have to take a step back because my faith community wasn’t calling me to the same kind of Civic engagement and I really was disturbed by that and I said if anything You should compel me to stand up for the rights of the least of these and vulnerable people.
10:56
It should be my relationship with Jesus Christ.
Not my academic institution and so that was really the seed that was planted that ultimately manifested into this book.
Okay.
Wow.
I mean that story, just even hearing the account and some of the good that’s coming out of this.
11:15
Because this was, that was a turning point for you.
To say, I need to stick up for the vulnerable in my community, so I’m not supposed Turn a blind eye and be silent with that.
Now, now we’ve read a couple books, I know your book is a lot different, but we’ve had two major books come out about.
11:35
I mean, that’s more than two but the two that have gotten a lot of attention.
I’m done with mass incarceration, is Michelle Alexander’s new Jim Crow and Bryan Stevenson just Mercy.
Now with these two books I want you to tell me what’s the difference between Rethinking incarceration, and the two books prior that we’ve had about mass incarceration.
12:00
Yeah, I Fedders three real fundamental differences.
The first is both of those books really start the conversation about mass incarceration around 1970, with the launch of the War on Drugs is a that we’re going to talk about the massing card, evolution of mass incarceration and particularly the evolution of mass incarceration for black bodies.
12:23
We have to start right after reconstruction ins.
And so I take it way back and actually explain how convict leasing really is, the earliest manifestation of mass incarceration that we have in our nation.
And for people who don’t know about convict leasing just briefly, it was a system in which there were laws that were established during slavery called slave codes.
12:47
That were re inscribed after reconstruction to be reapplied specifically to Black people throughout the South and black people were arrested in Mass because of these laws and then they were literally, rented, out to corporations and plant ocean plantation owners who previously owned slaves before, and they were literally back on the same Plantation is doing the same work for the same people for the same.
13:14
No pay because of the loophole in the 13th Amendment, which says that slavery is abolished in our nation except for as a consequence for a crime and So one of the things that people should know about convict leasing was that it wasn’t this just small thing that a couple states were, you know, into lightly.
13:32
In one year, I talked about how the state of Alabama 73 percent of the state’s economy came from convict leasing.
Wow.
So this literally was what sustained the Southern economy after slavery was abolished and so that is a critical critical piece of us, understanding mass incarceration in the full.
13:52
Fleur way.
And so, that’s the first distinction.
The second distinction is that both of those books, really talk about mass incarceration, being manifested through the pipeline of the war on drugs and they really talked about Miss particularly Michelle.
14:10
She really talks about the War on Drugs, it focuses on the word drugs, brand, expands the conversation a little bit.
But my, my book says that there’s actually five pipelines that are funneling people into him incarceration.
Yes, the War on Drugs as a major conduit, but also there’s the school-to-prison pipeline.
14:29
There is the deinstitutionalization of mental health facilities.
The fourth would be the privatization of prisons and how lucrative and currents mass incarceration has become particularly being one of the most bought and sold stocks on the Wall Street right now.
14:46
And after the new Administration came into power, it was predicted by CBS any news and buy one of the topics that kit is SunTrust that private prisons will be one of the top five, most lucrative Investments that people can make over the next four years.
15:03
And that is directly connected to the fifth pipeline, which I say is a parallel pipeline to the war on drugs that we just had yet coin, this phrase.
But I said that there’s been a war on immigration has been launched in our nation and we’re going to come back to those because I want you to expound on.
15:22
Some of those pipelines that you talked about.
Yeah, we’re going to, I want to just pause there for for one second, but when you were talking about The the War on Drugs.
So yours goes beyond that.
15:39
Now, we talked a lot about Justice and what our role should be as, you know, as a part of the capital c church as far as advocating.
What do you see?
Just your book covers are just a wide wide theological framework on the church’s role, why the church should be involved and why the church should be advocating in this.
16:03
Can you Expand on that a little bit too.
Yeah, and I’ll just say that this is the third major reason why my book is different and the most important reason why my book is different, right?
The whole first half of my book, does the historical social analysis?
16:18
And I tried to do a really rigorous analysis that is on par with books that you’ll find in the secular world.
But the whole second half is about the church’s responsibility, responsibility and relationship to mass incarceration.
And so I particularly remember, This book for the church, the center of this conversation for the body of Christ and within that.
16:41
Yeah, the church has moral ethical responsibility to be engaged in the criminal justice system in from everywhere.
Ranging from Matthew 25 as a starting place.
Where, you know, I think it’s so funny.
That d25 is literally says that all Christians have a responsibility to be engaged in what’s going on behind.
17:03
Behind Bars.
Not social justice oriented Christians, not Progressive Christians.
It says all Chris.
Yeah.
And Jesus said is so passionate about that that he says that when we’re going behind bars we’re not just being present with the least of these but we’re presence with Jesus himself.
17:20
And so I often times say that I only had to write this book because we haven’t been present with Jesus behind mom because if we were being present with Jesus, we would know.
But I say we don’t know because we Don’t go and because we haven’t gone and we haven’t taken that passage seriously, and we haven’t taken seriously Hebrews 13:3 that says that we are supposed to remember the incarcerated as if we ourselves were incarcerated because we haven’t done that.
17:49
We really don’t know the ways in which the image of God is being two-faced on a daily basis Behind Bars from everything, ranging from solitary confinement, where there are Pete 90,000 people everyday life?
Act up and 9 8, by 12 inch sale where they’re locked me in isolation and darkness for 23 of the 24 hours of the day, and we call that incarceration.
18:16
But that’s really torture.
These people are given access to human contact and sunlight for one hour a day.
And we know that solitary confinement has irreversible cognitive impacts on people literally neuroscientist say that it dehumanizes a person.
18:33
So what we know these kinds of realities are happening on a daily basis behind bars as Christians, we have a moral and ethical responsibility to actually go be ambassadors or reconciliation and the good news in the midst of that kind of dehumanizing reality.
18:50
Wow.
But there are a plethora of ways, you know from the fact that you know, there are 14 States right now in our nation who don’t have a minimum age for trying juveniles as adults and because of that, they’re at Ben kids as young as 8 years old who had been sentenced as adults with an act within our nation’s history and when a child is sentenced as an adult, they are not eligible to get their record expunged before they turn 18, they also are more likely to get more severe sentencing and they’re more likely to be housed in adult facilities.
19:24
Even and we know that when juveniles are housed in adult facilities, they’re more likely to be sexually assaulted and they’re also more likely to commit suicide during their incarceration.
Duration or shortly thereafter.
And so there are a plethora of problems within our system and Christians have a responsibility to hold our system accountable and to what it claims to be a cyst a place where people go and they do get rehabilitated.
19:51
But right now, our system is not rehabilitating people, it is actually dehumanizing and exploiting them for their work.
Most people don’t really realize how much labor takes place behind bars and How many people are being exploited for their job?
20:07
I mean, for their labor, to the point that you have corporations and businesses that are everyday names, who are financially profiting off of what’s going on Behind Bars.
You have some people who’ve worked for companies for 10 and 15 years behind bars and they become proficient at their job.
20:25
And literally when they get released from prison, they go to those same companies and apply for a job and they get denied access to a job because of their Criminal.
So what that company is blatantly saying is that your labor is only desirable when exploitable, because prisoners, make about two dollars a day and after their release, they would have to pay them real wages.
20:48
Wow.
Is there a way?
I know we talked about the privatization of Prisons.
I know that there was a judge in Virginia like a couple years ago.
I don’t know if you remember this story but he actually had an investment in a juvenile detention center and he was actually for 25 years sending kids for minor offenses to this Juvenile Detention Center.
21:15
So they were trying to go back and overturn, you know, some of his cases.
And so now I know a lot of us, you know, you have IRAs that you have Investments, is there a way to check and see, you know, to make sure I think this is something tangible that people can do to make sure.
21:33
Sure, that their Investments are not part of their Investments.
You know, when you’re talking about, this is one of the top ways people are earning money.
Some of us may be invested in some of those systems and not even knowing that our portfolio portfolio, includes you know, this investment into prisons and privatization of Prisons.
21:58
Yeah, there are some activists who have really traced the money Trail and they are actually exposing all the corporations and entities Banks and investment companies and also insurance companies who are implicated in this.
22:14
And so I’ll come back after the chat and on the, on the page and I’ll actually type in some of those places that are doing that work.
So people can research that.
Thank you and you wanted I think you talked about is the war on drugs and I know we’ve talked about some of the myth and you know, really have that started stirring in 1968.
22:37
And if we look at what was happening in 1968, here you are on the heels of the Civil Rights Movement where you had, you know, immigration was passing all this legislation as it related to people of color, housing, fair housing, all these things were happening.
22:56
And then like, There was just a response.
Can we talk a little bit about the myth and what it did, and how it’s affecting us now, and even how even as a person of color have we?
We played into this this same falsehood, you know how we implemented our own in this too?
23:22
Yeah, that’s that’s a big question, I think.
23:36
Yeah, I think is critical question because I think a lot of the ways in which, you know, part of it was just timing.
So the the unfortunate death of Len Bias and the way that they were able to To sensationalize crack after that and to depict it as this.
23:58
This drug that was not only killing our best and our brightest.
But it was also this drugs that was making everyday people who weren’t, you know, represented as our best and brightest brightest to become these violent deviant, trembles to use, a, you know, more contemporary terms, super Predators who were going to be Unleashed on our neighborhoods and actually raping Only to our communities and our children.
24:24
And and so, there was this way in which crack was so sensationalized that we within the black community also body into a lot of the media propaganda and the rhetoric and yes, clearly no one wants people who are addicted to drugs just out there especially when the drugs you know, Advise them to be more violent, there has to be ways in which all of our communities care about them and engage that problem.
24:59
But the way that we chose to engage, the problem was to really dehumanize people who had criminal chemical addictions and instead of responding to help them, get the medical interventions that they needed.
We used it as a political expedient way for people to advance their political careers and that happened in both.
25:22
Black and the white Community, this wasn’t just something bad, right?
People were guilty of and so.
But I think what’s been important is that you’ve seen so many of those people who were implicated come out and like blatantly say, the War on Drugs was a failure and their response was completely miscalculated and they didn’t understand the damage in the harm that was going to do.
25:45
But in light of that they’re still politicians were clinging to those same kind of punitive strategies.
And responses to crimes.
Even though medical professionals and police chief’s in major cities are flood flat out saying, we cannot incarcerate ourselves out of this problem.
26:02
People need medical interventions.
Not incarceration.
Yeah.
And so I think it’s like what your book is calling, especially Christians to is that third space, and it’s like you’re calling us to this place of mercy and empathy.
And, you know, and I know you get some, we’ll get to some of the solutions that you have.
26:22
In your book, but one of the things that stood out when you were talking about these pipelines, just two things I wanted to bring out one, was the immigration increase and I think some people we are seeing immigration increased now, but immigration has been increasing for a while and I think you give a percentage about that and I wanted you to talk a little bit about that.
26:49
And and who is it affecting more?
When we talk about that.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think it’s important that you raise that because there’s immigrants coming into this country all from all over the world, but there is a certain immigrant that is being depicted.
27:07
As, you know, violent rape is and criminals and drug lords, and all these kind of things.
And so we can’t we can’t dismiss the way in which brown people were coming into our country from the southern part of the country.
27:23
We can’t act as if we talked about immigration, we’re talking about all immigrants, we’re talking particularly about Immigrants from South America and Mexico, and we are criminalizing them in ways that really dehumanize them and actually depict them as these violent Sinister beings who are just coming here for economic gang, and to destroy and deplete the resources of our nation.
27:54
And so, but from 1990 to 2000, there was a six hundred and ten percent.
Peace in the number of immigration arrests, and a lot of people would be shocked to realize that in 2010 a Democrat.
28:11
And I think this is important, because when we talk about mass incarceration, there are ways in which we can play this kind of partisan politics game, where we just say it’s all about, the Republicans actually criminalizing people of color, but we have to take seriously, the fact that mass incarceration is a bipartisan agenda and both He’s right and couple and have used Law and Order rhetoric as apis, politically expedient way to gain, access to power.
28:41
But in 2010, there was a Democrat by the name of Robert Byrd who introduced a federal bed, mandate requiring 34,000 immigrants on average night lead to be detained by ice.
And we know that there’s a direct correlation between the were on immigration and private prisons because 90% percent of prisoners who are held in.
29:04
I mean, 90% of the people who are detained for immigration offenses, are held in private prisons and African American man.
29:24
One in three will spend time behind bars in their lifetime, but the number because of the war on immigration for Hispanic males is And six.
Wow, I was going to do.
The other thing that you talk about is the juvenile Mischief in like typical juvenile Behavior, being criminalized.
29:47
And I look at that and you’re talking about, you know, teens who are, you know, who their cognitive development is not, you know, fully grown.
They’re not adults.
So we can’t expect them to act and Think and make decisions like adults.
30:03
And so we have scientific, you know, evidence, that helps us understand, you know, their frontal lobe is developing and all these different things.
But the way that they, you know, we have school resource officers or if we have, you know, things that are happening.
30:20
Now, we’re seeing this implicit bias and we’re also seeing the criminalization of are, you can you talk a little bit about that?
And I, and I, and just two cases that I think of Is, you know, some of is the pool incident that happened in McKinney Texas, and the other incident that happened in South Carolina with the young girl, this was dealing with Rowdy, teens one.
30:45
Basically, in the other one was Dylan with a cellphone.
Yeah, you know, and these are yeah like we criminalize you know, I want you to talk a little bit about that.
Yeah.
So in those cases you had Eric casebolt and Ben Fields where the two officers and in both cases the points to a disturbing Trend that we see in particular with officers and young women of color, where there is this excessive force that is used by in both of these cases, white officers against young vulnerable, women of color.
31:26
Who, I mean?
Excuse me, girls of color.
I don’t want even cuz they’re girls.
Yeah.
And they You know, in one a girl is snatched out of the desk and dragged across the floor and then the other officer repeatedly forces his knee and to her back slamming her face into the ground and you see this way in which the, the lack of accountability.
31:51
And, and but I think particularly, when we look into the McKinney case that McKay case actually sparked people to actually go back into the schools and see how off Often school resource officer.
Actually are receiving zero training on the difference of, well, that’s what it means, the police out on the streets and what it means to police in schools.
32:14
And because of that, literally, you are seeing the criminalization of juvenile, Mischief in ways, that is being treated as criminal Behavior out on the streets.
And so, I went back and I did some more research after I found out about that study and I found that it at least 91% of school resource.
32:31
His officers in our schools throughout the nation’s have literally received no training on cognitive development Early Childhood brain development.
And what is it mean to please differently to serve as a policing presence in schools versus out on the streets?
32:49
So, it’s like, we’re putting the students in a bad position but also police officers in the black bastard position because we’re not equipping them with the necessary information to really do.
Do their job more effectively.
So they’re responding to the students as they would a criminal on the street.
33:09
Exactly.
And this is one of the ways that I say, the church can really step up through its Civic engagement, we can actually petition and advocate for all school resource officers in our community to that.
Go through training about cognitive development and early childhood brain development, so that they can more appropriately serve.
33:31
As a presence of peace in our school, as opposed to what really usually manifests itself.
As a kind of colonizing presence, that is actually really detrimental to disproportionately students of color and impoverished communities where they are at schools with little to no resources.
33:53
And so, one of the real interesting things about the whole conversation though, is that when when we, the whole reason why officers were put in schools, was because there was an acknowledgement that there was this Rift between communities and police.
34:11
And they were trying to build better relationships between officers and children.
So children can actually learn to grow up and see officers is trustworthy and people that they go to when they actually need help, but then after the epidemic of school, shootings, started happening, particularly will Columbine.
34:30
And Sandy Hook, the role of Officers fundamentally shifted, and they were asked to, now start actually serving as disciplinary ends with in school.
And you also see one of the things I trace in the book is that there has been this huge rise in the way in which we have outsourced School discipline as opposed to dealing with it in house as it was when you and I were going to school.
34:52
When we got trouble we got in how suspension and things were dealt with inside the school.
But what you’re seeing now is there’s been this.
This pattern in which school discipline has been outsourced.
And people are increasingly being suspended, expelled and arrested for violations of school kind of as opposed to having it in dealt with in school and the increased presence of police and school has led to a disproportionate number of students being arrested and police are disproportionately allocated to schools that are low in so lower socio, economics, neighborhoods, and Honestly who don’t have resources, like speech and language pathologist, and school counselors.
35:40
And so the schools, they literally already have the least are receiving the most overt kind of policing in ways that are leading people disproportionately into the prison industrial complex.
So, I talked about how you have this trajectory where you have kids, who are going to pour underfunded decrepit, schools who are actually leading this pipeline into brand, new high-tech Innovative prisons.
36:08
And so we have to take seriously the way in which that is continuing to manifest itself and there’s church has to serve as a holy disruption to that pipeline, right?
And I think I heard you say that we have more prisons in juvenile detention centers.
36:28
Then we have degree earn In institutions.
Yeah, so right now in our nation we have more jails detention centers and prisons than we do degree-granting institutions throughout our nation, because of that many states throughout the country.
36:46
Particularly in the Southeast.
There are more people who are living Behind Bars than are living on college campuses.
Wow, wow!
And while we’re here, I want us to because I know there’s people that are listening and you’re like, you know, we when we We talked about this word justice and you’ve mentioned it a couple times, but I want you to distant.
37:07
Maybe I’m explain punitive and retribution Justice versus restorative justice because what we’re talking about biblical Justice, is that, that restores and I want you to just if you can just give us a little theological framework on that if you can.
37:27
Yeah, so our present system, our Criminal Justice System right now since the Justice is made manifest when the punishment for a crime is distributed.
So literally, there is a direct equivalency within our criminal justice system that Justice equates the punishment, and that’s not biblical.
37:47
And so, when we actually look at scripture will be seeing is at Justice.
And Tails, people being held accountable for their violations, through relationships of accountability and through those relationships of accountability, The possibility of reconciliation and restoration is made possible, but through those at relationship is accountability there.
38:09
People who walk with the offender in ways that help hold them true to the confessions in the repentance that they make.
But then ultimately Justice is established when offenders are reintegrated into society and healthy ways.
38:27
And so we’re starting to Justice actually says that crime is never.
The violation against an individual, but crying also always has a social component to it.
And so if crime is social, then when we actually talk about accountability, then we have to actually bring the community into the conversation because the other thing that happens when our Criminal Justice System, right now, the victim is completely muted.
38:53
The victim has no say or no voice in regards to what punishment looks like reconciliation looks like or healthy reintegration looks like, Restorative justice says that, since crime is a communal offense.
The community has to be part of deriving.
39:09
What the solution looks like.
And so it is only once a victim, feel safe and comfortable enough to move to this process.
But restorative justice, ultimately confronts the victim with The Narrative of the fender.
I mean, confronts the fender with the victim actually being able to speak directly to the offender.
39:31
Let the offender know the implications of their offense and they actually get to speak directly to them.
And in that, that has been proven to actually soften the heart and wait awaken the victim.
I mean, the offender to the implications of what they’ve done and in that reconciliation is made possible in the new way but also restorative justice in the name.
39:55
It says, for justice to actually be made manifest, did restoration has to happen.
And so, Biblical Justice is about how God is at work in the world, where God is actually leading to reconciliation to God first, then oneself and then to one’s neighbor and ultimately into the community.
40:19
And so, I break this down looking at a number of different viable versus, but one of the, one of the ones I just go through real quick, is numbers 12.
And so in numbers, 12, You get the first example of skin color Prejudice in scripture and you actually have two leaders of the church, who are bluntly.
40:42
Basically, they anti-black.
And so in their anti-blackness, they actually Miriam and Aaron.
They actually are blaspheming against Moses because he chooses to marry a cushion.
A woman and cushions were notorious for their black skin and so they I actually get mad at Moses because he decides to marry this woman and they start to actually speak against him in the community.
41:09
God is so offended by this.
That God actually comes down and some is a meeting be three between the three church leaders and actually, cause Marion and Aaron to account for what they’ve done.
And in this instance, his funny, as you get to see part of guys sense of humor, in this story because Miriam is so angry, but It’s like, well, if you don’t like black so much, you know what the opposite of black really, and it’s not just white, but it’s like lepers, a leopard is right?
41:44
And ultimately Miriam gets leprosy which actually tell you can’t you write like stillborn white and she has to go outside of the community for a week.
But what’s so powerful about the story and this is where restorative justice kicks in, is that one when the offense has Happens.
42:02
Moses because Moses is the man of God that he is, he actually goes.
And he turns the guide and actually praised on behalf of Miriam and Aaron, who have just blaspheming him and actually, you know, coming at his wife, the wrong way.
42:18
But instead of, you know, holding a grudge against him or being mad.
I mean, being happy that God, you know, his giving Miriam this, this consequence.
He actually petitions God on their behalf and actually ask for Hank, Grace, on them, and forgiveness.
And God, you know, here’s Moses is plea but he says that they’re still a punishment required for their sinfulness and so Miriam has to go outside of the community.
42:44
And then at that point here in ultimately confesses to his sin and after a week goes by Miriam is able to be reintegrated and Community.
But what’s so powerful is that the the whole Community doesn’t move forward without Miriam the whole Community has to stay still and to Miriam is ultimately reintegrated into society.
43:06
And so you see this restorative justice because it’s Justice because they were held accountable for what they did through relationships of accountability.
But God ultimately says that there were still a punishment that was warranted.
And so restorative, justice, doesn’t say that people get away with crime or there’s soft on crime.
43:23
There is accountability, But ultimately says justice in.
And of itself is never manifested until the community is, And people are reintegrated and full healthy ways.
And so I think that’s a big fundamental shift from what our criminal justice system is presently doing in the world today.
43:42
Cool.
And I love the way in your book.
You talk about Justice and righteousness together be a Oneness, you know, in that and you just lay that you guys have to read the book to know more about that but he really talks about righteous relationships and I think there’s this other A thing where, you know sometimes we can dislike you know and look down on those that are in prison and like you’re saying we’re all called the you know to to the prisons in that in that sense.
44:16
And I think about this I think I heard you say something about, you know, talking about just how many people throughout scripture that we imprison our people that should have been in prison.
Yeah.
Mercy and Grace was given.
44:33
And you know, if we talked about how much of the New Testament was written from behind cell walls, you know, just share a little bit about that.
Yeah, the church is really filled to really grapple with inherent connection between scripture and mess.
44:50
Most people don’t realize the four books of the Bible were written in the midst of Any Nation.
We literally only have the book of Colossians on a pause disciples.
Constantly came back working, visit prison.
And it was through those letters while her serrated that he was actually pastoring the church in the city into faithfulness, because they were backsliding, and their Orthodoxy was going to the Wayside and in the midst of his incarceration, Restoration.
45:20
Paul is actually writing letters to the church and actually pastoring them.
Reminding them who God is and what it means to be faithful to the gospel.
And so that is just such a powerful story, but I think even in addition that like the reality is I like to say, you know, there is no gospel without prisoners.
45:42
Like literally, if we take all the incarcerated people out of the Bible, there is no Bible.
I mean Jesus.
And Perfecter of our faith who is falsely incarcerated and ultimately sentenced to the death penalty.
If you take him away Paul who wrote the majority of the New Testament, you take him away, you take away, John the Baptist hananiah, the see her, you take away, Joseph, Shadrach Meshach Abednego Silas Sampson, the list goes on and on and on, it’s just like if we at the earlier Twitter responded, Two criminals, the way we do, literally there would be no good news to pass on.
46:24
There will be no gospel to inherit.
And I think that’s so critical for us as Christians because we live in to this kind of Theology of, or even this filth philosophy of meritocracy and America and particularly in North America where we say, you know, you get what you deserve.
46:42
But if anybody should understand the fallacy of we get, what we deserve is, should be Christians because we know that if we Will we will deserve eternally, separated from God and then he’s dead, we should get that.
46:59
You don’t actually get what you deserve, but is literally only through Grace that we are part of the family of God, because scripture tells us that Christ died for us while we were yet.
Sinners yes.
Jesus say, well, I waited for them to get their act together, and them to be, you know, good upstanding citizens and then I died for them.
47:19
Jesus.
Died for us, scripture, says, while we were yet enemies of God.
And so, if we are only part of the family of God through that, because of the grace of God, if that Grace doesn’t Mark, how we respond to people, when they violate the law, then I say that we actually forfeit our Birthright as Christians, we forget who we are, and whose we are.
47:40
And when that happens, we actually start to embrace, punitive responses to crime, and the rhetoric of Law and Order and get tough on crime.
The three strikes, you’re out and even we support capital punishment and that’s one of the things I point to in the book is, you would think that Christians would think differently about capital punishment given that our favorite balls Around Jesus who again was falsely incarcerated and put to death by the state.
48:07
But unfortunately Christians have been some of the staunchest supporters of the capital punishment and I just say it’s a, it’s a real failure of our discipleship.
Wow.
And you go.
I mean you guys he goes into atonement and sanctifying retribution, he talks about he goes deep with just our church fathers and where some of this thoughts.
48:31
These thoughts come from within our theology.
He goes through Augustine’s contribution to the penal substitution.
He goes.
I mean, I mean, he talks about where this stuff starts like y as.
48:48
Locals or white as Christians.
We think in this way and why we’re not set apart in this.
Why we aren’t that third space y?
We you know, I recently heard I’m not going to say any names, but I just heard someone thought they were talking about, you know, there’s just big thing with math, you know.
49:07
But the messaging is a little different with with meth and the method the, there’s more of grace and mercy, which it should be with the same things.
Don’t get done with With crack, you know, but it was it so, you know.
But when you were talking about they were talking about the drug dealers and you know, and it was like, you know, we should we need to give the drug dealers, the death penalty and people would ya.
49:34
And I’m like, okay that’s the ball.
We see this disproportionate, we know we live in an unjust society and we live in a jet within a justice system that is not the same for everyone.
And so when I’m hearing this, I know the color of the people that will be put to death is something like this passes either.
49:56
And and who’s to say, you know, you know you have the situation that we talked about with Catherine, you know where people are.
They plant drugs?
You know, just just all kinds of things won’t because we live in a simple broken unjust Society, you know?
50:13
And this is my personal opinion is that we don’t have the right to take some His wife.
Yeah, now did not within an unjust society that we live in, you know, so we could talk more about that later.
We can go on and on but I’m telling you guys, he goes into this, so we can really get underneath just the, just the thought process.
50:36
And, you know, one of the things I always like to tell people to is that, you know, just as just mention either when you in the Bible, over 200 times, it’s important to God.
And so Therefore, and we’re talking about Justice and righteousness, we’re talking about the restoring its component at this.
50:54
So it should be important to us to, you know.
So what should churches like, what should be a church is witness and testimony.
How does Grace Trump?
This, this law thing?
You know, you talk a little bit about that in your book.
51:11
How does Grace Trump law and, and what would you like to see the church’s testimony be and become Yeah, I think it’s, I think this is the critical question, particularly around capital punishment.
So, I talked about the, the passage where Jesus encounters the adulterous woman where, and this is the only time we really see Jesus intervened.
51:34
And in this way, with this question at hand is besides, when he himself is executed, but Jesus comes in and literally, the law said that she should be stoned him killed.
And that where the law demanded Bloodshed Jesus comes in and in search Grace.
51:54
And he actually says, you know, let you who, you know, is, you know, capable of judging this person which no one is cast the first stone.
And I, you know, that’s one of the things I talked about when I agree with you.
We don’t have the capacity to take rice because there’s only one just judge and any of our judgments are partial and biased.
52:18
All People.
And, you know, one of the things Evangelical Church has failed to really grapple with.
We all talk about the fact that, you know, we all believe in individual seeing and we’re all Sinners, who follow short of the glory of God.
But we don’t really talk about if we are all fallible people.
52:35
And individuals saying is a reality, what happens, when fallible people get in charge of powerful institutions and structures, and government that simpleness oozes out into the structures that As a steward and bias becomes a real reality.
52:53
And you know, we have Bryan Stevenson likes to say that we presently have a criminal justice system that works better for you if you’re rich and guilty, then if you’re poor and innocent and and we have to really grapple with how fundamentally broken, our criminal justice system is around along racial and class lines, and until we have that conversation until we really talked about the future.
53:18
Active black men represents 6.5 percent of the u.s. population book 40.2% of the incarcerated population.
Whatwhat does that mean there’s been this way in which we have linked criminality and Blackness and criminality, and Latino in this right now.
53:36
And there, we have to have real conversations about how our theological imagination has become so distorted in the way, in which pigmentation has been.
So, fundamentally linked to Ality and until we have those conversations, then we can will cease to be the kind of ambassadors of reconciliation.
53:56
The scripture calls us to be.
And so, what’s your question?
I’m sorry.
I went off on a tangent.
Where do you think you’re crazy?
What is your hopelessness?
You know?
Like what is your hope?
Yeah, for the church and you give some solutions of some things that churches can do and how we can be involved.
54:18
Lived in this, you know, kind of swimming Downstream is versus, you know, our Upstream, to kind of catch some of these kids before things happen, and they fall into this, this system that this unjust system, you know, what are some practical things that you that you would like to see in some of the things that we see at the knee, there’s some churches are already doing.
54:45
Yeah.
So there are a number of things.
I say that there are four ways that all churches should be in there.
All churches can be involved in.
I say, every single church should be involved in at least one of these four ways.
The first is prevention.
You can find the closest school to you, that, you know, is under resource that, where, you know, that teachers, who are already getting paid too, little are literally having to take money out of their own Pockets to buy school supplies for their kids.
55:14
You can Find that school and you as a church can adopt at school and you can start to leverage some of your social economic resources and your Social Capital to actually help level the playing field for students.
In that school.
You can volunteer at the school you can do mentoring.
55:31
You can do counseling, you can do tutoring.
One of the things when I moved out to Oakland California.
One of the things I was shocked by when I got out there 33% of the elementary schools did not have functional libraries because They did not have the budget to pay Librarians.
55:47
So what what happened was, there was a non-profit in the area.
Faith-based nonprofit in the area that’s pulled congregants and actually had congregation members who are willing to volunteer their time and that allowed schools to reopen their libraries.
56:02
And so there are creative ways church can be involved like that.
But the other thing that happens is when you find that school, you get a part of schools like that.
Often times, you’re going to find that.
There’s a that number of students in those schools who actually are on free and reduced lunches.
56:20
But we never asked when we talk about school students who are on free and reduced lunches, is what happens to those students during the holidays.
When school is not in session or during the summer time when there is a school, if that’s the only nutritious meal, they get all day.
Where do they get their substance from?
56:36
Most people don’t realize that the church can actually volunteer to serve as a summer feeding program, and they can actually step up and fill that void throughout.
Entire summer, and they can actually build these life-giving relationships with students, where they’re meeting the physical needs.
But they’re also establishing a real relationship.
56:54
Where, you know, we can actually start to help them understand their need for living water, but it can’t just all be about evangelism because they’re people who are really have Desperate needs out there in the world.
And the church has a responsibility to step up and fill those gaps to.
57:09
And people will know if you’re just doing something just to evangelize to then we have to love.
Of people, and when we love people, that’s what opens people’s hearts up to actually hearing the truth of the gospel and their need for who God is.
So that’s one way.
The second way we should all be involved.
57:27
Like Matthew 25 says, we go behind bars.
Well, we actually go behind bars.
Things changes think.
I mean things change because these are no longer statistics.
There are no longer just, you know, specs that you here.
But these are relationships.
57:43
These are faces.
These are now.
Names.
These are people.
These are people who when you see the news and you see something about abuse in prison, you actually start to care because you’re actually proximate to the suffering and so the church has to learn to get proximate to the suffering.
57:59
The third thing that we could do in the other it’s an overlooked piece.
We often have don’t talk about families with incarcerated loved ones, but what would it look like for the church to actually step up and actually walk alongside of people who are trying to readjust the Life now that they are missing, Mom, Dad, brother sister.
58:18
These are vital members of family structures and when they are taken away, there’s this huge gap.
And families are trying to scramble to fill that Gap.
The church has a way in which we can walk alongside the people support.
People love, people create space for them to limit those realities.
58:35
But also say that, you know, you don’t have to carry this burden alone.
We can walk alongside of you and support you in this.
And then the last one is in the process of Re-entry.
So many people are released with $35 and a bus pass, and they say, good luck in life.
58:52
Go go, figure it out, and they don’t have anybody who is really willing and able to come alongside of them.
And one of the Grilli grave realities, you hear, when you talk to people and walk with people who’ve been incarcerated, they’ll talk about how so many churches are.
59:09
So anxious to go back behind bars initially to do the Proselytizing to actually help, you know, evangelize them but they’ll say as soon as I gave my life to Christ, you know, nobody was interested in really walking with me doing discipleship.
And they sure weren’t anywhere to be found when I got released.
59:28
And so what would it look like for churches that actually do the work in needs to do to actually be able to receive people upon being released?
I mean, literally at the gate go meet people as soon as their release take them in walk.
Alongside of them, and actually Then into your community and you can’t love these people from a distance, you have to actually do the internal work of actually D stigmatizing people and you know, assuming some of your fears and some of your biases about who’s incarcerated to the point that you can actually do healthy Ministry and if you do that hard work and you’re able to walk alongside and people love, people create space for people, do life on life discipleship with people.
1:00:12
That’s where the real transformation.
Action happens, but we can’t do that if we’re afraid of the incarcerated.
And so those are bored very tangible ways that we can be involved.
Prevention in the midst of incarceration.
Walk alongside of families with incarcerated loved ones and during the re-entry process.
1:00:28
And now I’ll give you one more real tangible way.
And that’s through the foster care system and not just not just through fostering kids, because everybody can’t do that.
But what we know is that so for the state of For me, in particular, I’ll give you example.
1:00:46
One of the things I talked about is we know that in the state of California is 70% of the incarcerated population comes out, the foster care system and so, the church has a 70%.
And so the church has a very tangible way in which it can intervene in the system by actually showing love and support to foster care Youth and we can actually intervene by particularly around the holidays because statistically foster care youth, get in the most Trouble around the holidays when their peers go and have these great times of family and fun.
1:01:20
And her lavish would love and gifts and they come back to school.
And they’re all talking about in there are jovial about the experiences they had.
And a lot of foster care kids are coming back, resentful about the fact that they didn’t have these similar experiences that they felt abandoned, they felt unloved, these kinds of realities.
1:01:38
And so the church can actually intervene tangibly by creating space within her home.
Homes, within our spaces of family.
Expand our definition of family and create room for kids who aren’t going to have that kind of love and affection and actually we can show them the love of Christ through creating space for them.
1:01:57
Had our Christmas table are Thanksgiving table.
During these hide moments of you know, familial times celebration, we should be looking to re-establish our family lines in ways that actually Bear witness to Who We Are.
1:02:16
And I think, I think that’s the hopis, and I’ll just share this when I was in Austin.
One of the things I loved about Austin, they have a network of pastors and they, at they call it Abba, but it’s a network of pastors.
They do community outreach together, like, the, the churches do.
1:02:34
And so, there’s over 300 churches that are involved in this.
And one of the things, one of their strategies is each church is, is responsible for Adopting a church, a school within this District a title.
One school.
1:02:50
And so you know, they help with what, you know, back to school backpack school supplies.
So that kids that are transient, you know, when they come they have a book bag to give them.
They help with, you know, School carnivals different things.
And also inviting that community that that school out to maybe events and Easter egg hunts and different things.
1:03:14
At the church is also having.
And so there’s this relationship that develops in within the school and church community.
And that’s a beautiful thing.
And I think that is what you’re getting it right here like, yeah, you know, this is kind of like, when you look at this systemic system, we can look like, oh my God, this is impossible to unravel, but if we can unravel slavery, yeah, because I travel, you know, Jim Crow.
1:03:44
If we, you know, we unravel some some, I mean some broken systems.
And so we can’t just say oh this is just too massive and you know, it’s been around for you know a hundred years or so we just gotta you know, when Jesus comes everything will be alright.
1:04:00
If, you know.
Yeah, yeah, but none of those systems were able to be on travel without the church.
Awakening to, it’s more of a responsibility.
The church had taken to its role in the revolution and have to Take part in it and jump on the freedom Caravan.
1:04:17
And right now we have been asleep and we have allowed the Caravan to pass Us by, but we need the ethical and moral voice of the church to hold accountable is of freedom.
I mean, movements of Freedom, accountable to the nonviolent kind of radical love of Jesus Christ, that is made manifest through our witness.
1:04:41
When we are faithful to a scripture cause us to Okay.
Well this has been great nominee.
I love your words in this book and like we said read, this is Dominique Gillard but he’s he wrote a book.
I’m rethinking incarceration is great.
Yeah we couldn’t even go over just all of the things that’s in this book.
1:05:02
So hopefully you guys will get this book tonight and I want to get give a challenge out to all you know, you know.
You know, to all the people who are out there this MV the bridge groups, you know, and all of this, those of you who are out there, you know, hey, you know, we talked about, you know, once you sometimes you guys are looking at, okay, what do I do after?
1:05:29
You know, we finished their the be the bridge.
Curriculum, we’re going to be talking to a lot of different authors over the next few months, you know, doing one a month.
This is, this is a book right here that you can go through with your beat.
Which group, you know, you can talk about this and really, you know, these are some things that you can start implementing in your church is easy to adopt the school.
1:05:53
Even if you can’t get your trips to do it, we are the church, you know, it could be, you know, you take an extra school supplies, buying it, when you buy your kids supplies and buy them, but Bass, But extra one and just donated to the school.
So they have, you know, there’s a teacher that the student may need it, you know?
1:06:11
I know some of you go and read too.
To the classrooms and Mentor kids.
There’s a lot of things adopting a child for from the foster care system for for the holidays.
And there’s just so many things that, but he talks a lot about this and you guys are really creative.
1:06:30
And so thank you for rightness brother.
Thank you for allowing God to use you.
And speaking truth to us and putting yourself out there because I know as a black male This was not easy to write, you know, and I know this was a labor of love.
1:06:49
I couldn’t imagine, you know, just the emotions that you’re going through having to write something like that.
That affects you also personally to and so, thank you brother.
For just stick it with this.
1:07:06
I’m telling you guys, this is only a tip don’t really is brilliant.
He is brilliant.
I’m so glad to know you We met through through the be the bridge group.
When we first was getting the group started, the the Facebook group started, you know, we’ve also met in person a couple times too, so, so it’s been great.
1:07:29
I followed the work that you’re doing, you know, I’m good.
Congratulations on your new position and Chicago, but I think there’s, you know, we don’t have enough time for questions as much, but if you guys have Questions.
You can post it under the video and I think you’re going to come back and post a couple Links of one of the questions that that I said.
1:07:52
And you know if you if you feel like answering a couple of questions you can are poor people to the right direction.
Or what he’s going to do, he’s going to punch out to his book.
That’s right because I think someone really wanted to.
They wanted to hear more about the the Pinot.
1:08:11
Some of the I can’t I can’t think of Where I was in here, some of the penal substitution, there’s a whole chapter in there on it.
The whole.
Yeah, there’s a whole chapter right here is chapter 9 and stuff.
So you can you can go ahead and and, and read more in depth about that.
1:08:31
So thank you for being our first person.
Yeah, Bridge talk.
And so we’re planning to do more of these.
Thank you guys for tuning in.
Thank you for listening and let’s go.
And change the world.
Come on.
Now we can do this.
1:08:47
We can unravel and mantle and deconstruct all of this Brokenness.
So thank you, Dominic.
You have a good night?
Okay, you two.
All right.
Thanks everybody.
Thank you for listening to this.
1:09:04
Be the bridge production for more bridge building resources, visit our website at be the bridge.com,
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