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One of the fun things about life in national politics is that you sometimes get to hang out with people from the entertainment industry. I have been advised by my wife that to actually brag about my name dropping exploits over the years would be bad form, but it's a fun list. However, the single coolest celebrity sighting ever- ever- happened to me just the other day, and that was when Wayne Kramer dropped by my office.
Wayne is not as famous as some folks I have hung out with, but I was even more excited about spending some time with him for a couple of reasons. The first was that the guitar is my favorite instrument by far, and Wayne is one of the greatest guitarists ever. He has a place on Rolling Stone Magazine's top 100 guitarists of all time, and he is considered by most punk musicians to be the founder of punk rock music. I am more of a classic rock and blues guy myself, but I have always loved punk's rebel spirit, and I do love the driving energy of punk. As Wayne said to me when I was talking about the guys in my dorm who lived on the floor below me who introduced me to punk by playing it very loud at all hours of the night, punk was invented in order to raise hell with and annoy your neighbors.
The biggest reason why I was so happy to have Wayne come by was because of the cause he came to talk to me, though: prison reform. The cause of prison reform is one of the most ignored causes there is. Politicians are afraid of it. Funders don't give it much money. It never seems to be much of a priority for most activists. But for Wayne, it is his life's passion, and thank goodness there are some people like Wayne out there who care about it, because the prison system in this country is completely messed up. The United States incarcerates more people per capita than any other country, and we have 25% of the world's prisoners even though we only have 5% of the world's population. As Wayne likes to say, either Americans are the most evil people in history, or something is seriously screwed up. With mandatory minimums and three strikes laws, many people are serving 20 years or more even for non-violent crimes. Prisons are overwhelmingly over-crowded, sometimes with double or more the number of people in them that they were designed to hold. There is little or nothing in the way of rehabilitation, job training or placement for those getting out soon, or counseling except for what private church groups or charities like Wayne's Jail Guitar Doors organization provides. (Jail Guitar Doors was the name of a great song The Clash wrote and recorded in Wayne's honor after he went to prison on a drug charge.)
Besides the terrible wrongness of treating anyone- yes, even including those who have committed crimes- in the inhumane way people are treated in these overcrowded hell holes, it is a really dumb choice as a society if we actually want to lower the crime rates and protect society from violence. Think about it: you throw some troubled young man (most people who commit crimes fall into that category) into an overcrowded, understaffed prison for 20 plus years. Many of the people they are surrounded by are violent people of ill intent who may end up abusing them. You give them no job training or counseling or other rehabilitative services, and you give them no help finding a job or home after they serve their time. What are the odds they leave the joint being gentle good-hearted people who would never commit another crime?
Our prison costs way too much, imprisons way too many people for way too long, frequently for non-violent crimes. And it doesn't make us safer as a society. It is a bad, bad deal all the way around. Nobody talks about it much, because it isn't popular to talk about being "soft" on criminals.
Wayne Kramer's organization is one of the best I know of, and Wayne is one of the best people I have ever met. In this holiday season, send him a little coin to help rehabilitate some prisoners and make the world a better place.
The title of my post today is from Matthew 25. The man whose birth we Christians celebrate this week, in the one and only place in the Bible where he explicitly talks about how God will judge who gets into heaven and who doesn't, says those who gave him food when he was hungry, gave him water when he was thirsty, welcomed him when he was a stranger, gave him clothes to wear when he had none, visited him when he was sick, and came to see him when he was in prison. The people he's talking to are confused, saying we don't remember when you had all these problems, or helping you in this way, and Jesus says: "in so far as you did this to the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me." The people in prisons in this country may have committed crimes, but they are still our brothers and sisters, and the way they are treated is both inhumane and stupid for our society. In this season most of all, I'm thankful that there are guys like Wayne Kramer out there doing the Lord's work.
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