8/8/2019 Wayne Salter Protest Talk
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Hello, I wish that I could say good morning but this morning is
not a good morning or is this a good day for
Millen/Jenkins County. At 10 a.m. this morning, just about a
mile from here there was a group of people who set inmotion the
demise of life as we know it here in Millen and in Jenkins
County.
I am a convicted sinner and a prisoner of my Lord Christ Jesus
and as such, I am compelled to speak out against theactions taken
today by our Governor, Sonny Purdue, and some of our elected
officials. This morning Corrections
Corporation of America hosted a groundbreaking ceremony that
represents collaboration between the State of Georgiaand the
for-profit prison industry.
Why should we oppose the for-profit prison industry? There are
many reasons; some are spiritual and some aresecular.
Spiritual reasons for condemning for-profit prisons are:In the
HOLY BIBLE, My Lord Christ Jesus is quoted saying The time is
fulfilled and the Kingdom of God is at hand;repent ye, and believe
the gospel. He told his followers to Love your neighbor as you love
yourself.What does it mean to love yourself? Would you ever condemn
yourself to live in a cage where you will be kept by
strangers and fed what you didnt want to eat? No, you wouldnt
because you care about yourself and love yourself somuch that you
are willing to forgive yourself for anything that you do wrong.
Think about it. If you will love yourneighbor as yourself then
there would be no need for prisons.In the Sermon on the Mount,
Jesus rejected vengeance as the primary goal of justice. He
abolished the law of an "eye
for an eye and a tooth for a tooth when he said whosoever smites
thee on the right cheek: turn to him also the leftother
interpretations say But now I tell you do not take vengeance on
someone who has wronged you.As Christians, our goal should be to
restore people to a right relationship rather than retaliate
against them. InProverbs, we are admonished to not rile our
children to anger.
Jesus said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments
Stand up for Jesus.You cannot pick and choose which scripture
you will accept or which you will reject. If you will accept this
prison as anecessary evil for jobs and money then you will also
take the mark for the same reason.
As I gratefully experience the grace of forgiveness of God in my
life, I am convicted that no person is beyond the reachof Gods
redeeming love in Christ. It is my responsibility to love my
neighbor. .
I know that as a Christian I am called to care for individuals
and help prisoners by personal contact and that I am calledto fight
against the current system of for-profit private prisons that use
human beings as their commodity.
Religious leaders have stated that they express great
apprehension about the rise of for-profit private prisons
throughout
the United States, especially in the South: When prisoners
become units from which profit is derived, there is atendency to
see them as commodities rather than as children of God.
They note the for-profit prison system operates with predictable
characteristics given its profit motive: The industry
lobbies for harsher sentencing laws to increase the prison
population, and it cuts overhead by reducing the number ofprison
staff and paying lower wages.
Overcrowding and reduction of services, while good for profits,
have resulted in higher incidences of inmate-on-staff
assaults and inmate-on-inmate assaults in for-profit prisons.
Based in part on the moral obligation of the state tooversee
conditions concerning personal freedom we forthrightly state: ...we
call for an end to all for-profit private
prisons.
People are not commodities. They are not to be used for
commerce. Our nation fought a civil war to put an end thatpractice
but in the aftermath slavery won out. The 13th amendment to the
constitution states:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a
punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly
convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place
subject to their jurisdiction.
For-profit private prisons are no more than United States
gulags. For those who dont know that term; gulags wereSoviet Union
labor camps for political prisoners. I wonder if the people who
lived in the towns where the gulags were
built welcomed them. They were profitable, efficient and well
run. We are treading on thin ice here my friends.
Hear me out. I know that what I said sounds like an unfair
comparison but everything starts somewhere. There isalways a
beginning. I want all of you to consider the actual facts about the
private for-profit prison system andseriously consider what has
happened here this morning.First, I will say that I am for reform
of all the prison systems, Federal, State and private prison
systems. I believe that
the prison systems are used as dumping grounds by our government
and our society. Dumping grounds for humanbeings. Human beings
being treated like refuse, being deemed unfit, those who do not
measure up to an artificialstandard.The treatment of persons who
are incarcerated clearly shows that our society does not want to
help them. Our societal
fascination with fortune and fame is working to our detriment at
the expense of real people.
8/8/2019 Wayne Salter Protest Talk
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Our society is too busy in the pursuit of wealth.
We as a nation have the largest percentage of our population
behind bars than any other free nation. As a people weneed to
redress, reform and revise the current justice systemnot add more
to it!
Most of our great grandparents would be inmates in this here CCA
prison, if they were alive today for, doing what theydid back
then.
We have a lot of folks in cages that are treated like dogs or
wild animals. Too many of those caged are non-violentoffenders (70
percent). In addition to the caging of non-violent offenders our
justice, system has mandatory sentencing
laws. These laws do not take into account whether or not a
person is reformed and therefore worthy of being restoredto a
rightful place in society. I do not claim to know the answers to
all our social ills but I can plainly see that our
current system is not working.After prisoners are released they
are still santioned for lifethere is no forgiveness and no
restoration. There is noconcern for the individual. The system is
strictly retaliatory and not at all restorative.By restorative, I
mean that the goal of justice should be aimed at restoring a person
to a right relationship with the
community in particular and the society in general.Experience
has shown that a vengeful justice system works against restoration.
Our system aggravates anti-socialattitudes of the prisoners as well
as all the other people who get caught up in it.How can we have an
orderly society if we distrust our governors, judges and law
enforcement officials? This
atmosphere of hate and mistrust supports the attitude of elected
and appointed officials. They argue for increasedspending for
additional police, judges, courts, prisons and correctional
officers rather than funding for programs thataddress human and
social needs such as intervention, education, job training, day
care, child and maternal health andsubstance abuse counseling.
As you can see, there are plenty of problems concerning prisons.
For-profit private prisons bring an array of ethicalconcerns.
Foremost of these concerns is the fact that the for-profit private
prison system is publicly traded on the stockmarket. That means
that the public can purchase stock in the corporation.
Well so what?Well the police officer, the clerk of the court,
the jury member, the judge, your lawyer, any or all of them might
own
stock in the prison. So what?The so what is that as a stock
holder these people have a vested interest in making a profit from
their investment andthe only way they will profit is if the prison
corporation profitsin other wordsyou going to prison for a
longtime.
Another problem with the for-profit private prisons is that
maximizing profit means minimizing service. It means thatthey will
pay entry-level employeeshello prison guardas little as possible
and provide them with the least andcheapest training
permissible.These minimally trained underpaid guards may make
mistakes that may tempt prisoners to take advantage of the
situation and crimes will be committed. Guards will be injured
and inmates will be charged with crimes and taken tocourt to stand
trial. Those charged will need public defenders; our local courts
will have to hear the case and so on and
on it goes. The prison profits--the community loses.Everyone has
an opinion is what Ive been told. There are witnesses here today
who will vouch for the validity of my
presentation. That which I have stated here today is the
facts--not just opinion.Here is one last fact that you can take to
heart. When the operators of the prisons can write the laws
concerningimprisonment no one except the operators of the prison
will be free. The United States Supreme Court has ruled
thatcorporations are to be treated as individuals and as such have
a voice in our government. Our government makes the
laws and if you break the law, you are a criminal. The
Corporation that can create criminal law and thus makecriminals of
us all is here in our midst today. CCA is the sole author of the
new State of Arizona immigration law.
