Prison Ministry Project leader speaks at LU
This semester, Alyssa Voigt, a sophomore from New Holstein, Wis., majoring in marketing, is creating content for the Lakeland blog. This is the latest in a series of blog stories she is writing.
The Rev. Jerry Hancock recently delivered an informative talk on the ethics of the incarceration system. Hancock delved into many different themes to demonstrate the prominent systemic disparities in criminal justice and to promote the consequential need for rehabilitation.
Hancock is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ (UCC) and focuses his faithful duties toward his role as the director of the Prison Ministry Project in Wisconsin. Before acquiring these roles, Hancock already had an extensive career in criminal justice, with roles such as public defender, district attorney, administrator of the Division of Law Enforcement Services, environmental protections and head of the state crime lab.
Hancock converted to a career in ministry after attending a lecture on racial disparities, which revealed the statistic that a young black man in Dane County was 208 times more likely to be imprisoned for a drug offense than a young white man who committed the same offense. This revelation led him to conclude that this issue is systemic, which ignited his transition to ministry to address these injustices from a different perspective.
The Prison Ministry Project was established in February 2006 and is affiliated with the United Church of Christ. Their mission is to serve prisoners, victims and their families and to engage the broader community in prison issues through restorative justice practices.
Hancock explains that restorative justice within this process is 鈥渂ringing the victims, offenders and the community together to heal the harm caused by crime.鈥�
Through facilitated conversations between inmates and victims 鈥渞estorative justice asks what harm was created and what is necessary to heal that harm. The harm to the victim, the harm to the offender's family, the harm to the community.鈥�
This process is meant to encourage understanding the broader impact of crimes beyond physical actions, as well as foster empathy and accountability in offenders.
Hancock explains this by stating that 鈥渁 restorative justice program can give people an idea of how to live a life of integrity. Not only the people that stay in prison, but the volunteers and the victims who leave because they see this.鈥�
The idea of this process is to help offenders recognize the cascade of their actions and promote empathy and the possibility of change. This process is also meant to contradict the traditional justice system's process that usually overlooks the broader impact and merely focuses on punishment.
Hancock stressed the importance of finding hope within the criminal justice system, defining it as the ability to 鈥渓ive a life of integrity,鈥� despite incarceration. He highlighted examples of inmates who become 鈥渢eachers, mentors and counselors,鈥� demonstrating that change is possible.
Hope is also meant to help volunteers and victims recognize and foster respect for inmates who strive for personal change. Along with hope, empathy is essential for enabling change in offenders since it helps connect the victims, offenders, and community members.
To support the effectiveness of these processes, Hanock shared a COVID-19 story of a prison converting one of their visiting rooms into a mask factory. Through the support of Grace United Church of Christ and other organizations, inmates produced 10,000 masks for prison staff and facilities. This movement showed the inmates and ministry鈥檚 ability to change and support the community through empathy.
Hancock also alluded to a comparison between the U.S. and Germany鈥檚 prison systems. He stated that countries like Germany, Sweden, Finland and Norway focus heavily on rehabilitation through allowing inmates to live in apartments, cook food, wear their own clothes and have shorter sentences.
In the U.S., the election of criminal justice representatives makes inmates more vulnerable to "tough on crime" politics, since judges fear political repercussions if perceived as being too lenient, resulting in higher incarceration rates and longer sentences. For the U.S to learn to prioritize rehabilitation, Hancock advocates for "smart on crime" policies.
Hancock explains that to be smart on crime, 鈥淲e need to be thoughtful. We must think about how long a person must be in prison before they can change. We need to have a process to let them out when they do change.鈥�
Discussion on the systemic nature of racial disparities in justice was also addressed using a hypothetical scenario to illustrate how identical punishments can still lead to unequal outcomes. Hancock went on to contrast traditional justice ethics, which emphasizes equal treatment to achieve fairness, with liberation ethic that focuses on how polices affect 鈥渢he most marginalized.鈥� This leads towards the conclusion that we must advocate for addressing systemic issues rather than identical treatment to achieve true justice.
A way for individuals to be part of the change is through supporting initiatives. One way he suggests how people can support these initiatives includes fundraising and securing resources for the Prison Ministry Project activities. Individuals can also encourage community members to volunteer and participate in restorative justice programs through highlighting the positive impacts volunteering has on the community and the lives of inmates.
Advocacy and education efforts are also crucial, such as promoting awareness of systemic disparities in the criminal justice system, fostering conversations that prioritize liberation ethics over traditional justice ethics and advocating for policies that reduce incarceration rates and support rehabilitation.
