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 "stool­pigeons" 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 wisdom­the Bible.

"Prie;one; are an ungodly cre­ation 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 climinolo­gists 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 OOl: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 human­ists 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

24 ~ THJ; COUNSJ;L of ChalcedQR t April, 1994

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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