A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power Read online

  After working for several years and bringing fresh and healthy water to more than eighty villages, they decided to build a bridge across the raging river. They sent the well-digging equipment to a missionary in nearby Ghana, and Baptists back home agreed to provide reinforcing bars and cement for the bridge. Neither had ever built anything of the kind, but with the help of volunteers they began their project. Rosalynn and I visited them on one of our trips to the area soon after the bridge was finished. It was heavily used by the previously isolated people, who could now reach the rest of their country throughout the year. When Jerome and Joanne retired after twenty-three years in Togo there were more than five thousand new Christians in the area, and their eighty churches each had a local minister. Based on the example set by Jesus, the men and women acted as equals in His service.

  Despite sharp differences of opinion about the role of women in positions of religious leadership, people of faith offer the greatest reservoir of justice, charity, and goodwill in alleviating the unwarranted deprivation and suffering of women and girls. This includes popes, imams, bishops, priests, mullahs, traditional leaders, and their followers who search for ideals and inspiration from a higher authority.

  The principle of treating others the same way one would like to be treated is echoed in at least twelve religions of the world. “Others” transcend gender, race, class, sexual orientation or caste. Whoever and whatever the “other” is, she has to be treated with dignity, kindness, love, and respect. In African communitarian spirituality, this is well expressed in the Ubuntu religious and ethical ideal of “I am because you are, and since we are, therefore I am”—a mandate based on the reality of our being interconnected and interdependent as creation. Therefore pain caused to one is pain shared by all.

  FULATA MOYO, PROGRAM EXECUTIVE, WOMEN IN CHURCH AND SOCIETY, WORLD COUNCIL OF CHURCHES

  4 | FULL PRISONS AND LEGAL KILLING

  As governor, I began to see more clearly that the tacit acceptance of bias, discrimination, and injustice creates an underlying tendency toward violence or abuse in a society, and a culture that results in the disproportionate suffering of women and others who are unable to defend themselves. This harm is magnified when ascendancy of the powerful is combined with religious beliefs that exalt one group of people at the expense of others.

  When our family moved into the governor’s mansion we found that the servants there, all black, were trusted inmates from the women’s prison, and we learned of their unjust treatment under the law. One of our cooks asked to borrow $250, showing me a letter that indicated she could be released with this payment to the local court in her hometown. I investigated the case and found that her husband had been an abusive drunkard who stayed at home only on her paydays as a licensed practical nurse; he beat her and took almost all the money. One day she fought back and killed him with a butcher knife. She nevertheless was sentenced to prison until she paid a fine of $750. As an inmate she had been able to raise only $500 during her past four years in prison. I had the state attorney general intercede, and the woman was set free within a few days.

  Rosalynn and I met a woman while vacationing on Cumberland Island, off the Georgia coast, who reported that her mother had borrowed $225 to put up bail for her son, who was charged with a minor crime. She was illiterate and had put her mark on what she understood was a promissory note with her five acres of land as collateral. When she went to repay the loan she was told that she had signed a warranty deed and had sold her land. I went to the Camden County courthouse and found that the report was true, but there was a pending legal case and it would be improper for a governor to intercede. The Georgia Supreme Court later ruled against the woman, and she lost her property.

  Another case involved a young woman named Mary Fitzpatrick, who was visiting a friend in the small town of Lumpkin, Georgia. A man was killed in a gunfight, and as the only visitor in town Mary was accused of the crime and taken to jail. She first met her court-appointed lawyer as they entered the courtroom for the trial, and he advised her to plead guilty, with a promise of light punishment. Instead she received a sentence of life imprisonment. Mary demonstrated extraordinary talent in all her assigned duties during our four years in the governor’s mansion, and as the newly elected president I obtained permission to act as her parole officer and to take her to the White House with us. In the meantime, the trial judge in Lumpkin had become a member of the Supreme Court of Georgia, and he agreed to have the evidence reexamined. Mary’s innocence was proven, and she received a full pardon.

  I began to visit the state prisons and found terrible discrimination against poor, black, and mentally handicapped people. Some had been in solitary confinement for several years. I employed a professional criminologist, Ellis C. MacDougall, as the director of Georgia state prisons and initiated an overhaul of our policies. Working with Director MacDougall’s guidance, I explored ways to decrease the number of imprisoned citizens. We gave sentenced persons a thorough physical and mental examination to learn their past experience and inherent capability and to ascertain the best education and training programs in prison to prepare them for a productive life. We depended on early release and work-release programs as jail terms neared an end, and I recruited a large corps of probation officers from among members of the Lions, Kiwanis, Rotary, and other service clubs. These volunteers spent a day or two in Atlanta with me and the prisons director and went through an intensive training course. They pledged to accept just one prospective probationer or parolee as a personal responsibility, visited the prisoner’s family before release, and promised to find or provide a full-time job for the person in their charge. These volunteers worked closely, of course, with professional probation officers.

  These same efforts were being made by other state leaders, and during our annual governors’ conferences we shared experiences and competed to determine who had most reduced our prison populations. At a gathering of Georgia’s former governors in 1995, Rosalynn asked one of the most recent about his greatest success in office. He proudly replied, “We built enough prison cells to reach from the state capitol to my home town.” The construction and operation of local and state prisons has now become a valuable economic asset, especially in more remote rural areas where other industries are scarce.

  There is an inevitable chasm between societal leaders who write and administer criminal laws and the people who fill the jails, often unnecessarily. The cumulative effect of this gap is a lowering of barriers against discrimination and violence that affects racial minorities, women, the mentally handicapped, and others who are naturally more helpless and vulnerable. We who are more privileged are not deliberately perpetuating our status at the expense of others, but we rarely wish to confront or be involved in the problem. Exalted commitments to peace and human rights are abandoned as we accept and rationalize the privileges we enjoy. The prison system is just one clear example.

  At that time, in the 1970s, only one in a thousand Americans was in prison, but our nation’s focus has turned increasingly to punishment, not rehabilitation. During the past three decades extended incarceration of people convicted of drug use and other nonviolent crimes has replaced an emphasis on rehabilitation with job training and restoration of citizens’ rights after the convicted have paid their debt to society. There are now more than five times as many American inmates in federal, state, and local prisons as when I was president, and the number of incarcerated black women has increased by 800 percent! An ancillary effect is that this increased incarceration has come at a tremendous financial cost to taxpayers, at the expense of education and other beneficial programs. The cost of prosecuting executed criminals is astronomical. Since 1973, California alone has spent roughly $4 billion in capital cases, leading to only thirteen executions, amounting to about $307 million spent for the killing of each prisoner.

  Although the number of violent crimes has not increased, the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with more than 7.43 per 1,000
adults imprisoned at the end of 2010. With only 4.5 percent of the world’s population, we claim 22 percent of the world’s prison population. Many of these prisoners, some now incarcerated for life, have never been found guilty of a violent crime but have been convicted of drug-related offenses. The American Civil Liberties Union reported in November 2013 that there are now 3,278 persons in federal and state prisons who are serving life sentences without parole—for nonviolent crimes! Not surprisingly, 65.4 percent of them are black. I gave a major address about drug use while president in 1979 and called for the decriminalization of marijuana, but not its legalization, with an emphasis on treatment and not imprisonment for users who were not involved in the distribution of narcotics. This proposal was well received at the time, but the emphasis was placed on punishment and not rehabilitation after I left office.

  Despite the proliferation of excessive imprisonments, the number of pardons by U.S. presidents has also been dramatically reduced. I issued 534 pardons in my four-year term, and in their eight-year terms Ronald Reagan issued 393, Bill Clinton 396, and George W. Bush 189, but in his first term Barack Obama issued only 23.

  As a “Nun on the Bus” I heard the struggles of ordinary people. I learned that to be pro-life (and not just pro-birth) we must create a world where all people have their basic needs met. This is justice. Governments hold the responsibility of enacting laws that ensure living wages and safety nets for people who fall through the cracks of the economy. In the United States, both federal and state policy makers must end political gridlock and enact just laws that ensure that all people have access to the basics: food, shelter, education, healthcare, and living wages. These are pro-life programs.

  SISTER SIMONE CAMPBELL OF NUNS ON THE BUS

  In October 2013 the United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women, Rashida Manjoo, reported a substantial increase in the proportion of women being incarcerated globally compared to men, and stated that conditions of their imprisonment are more severe than those faced by men. She explained that women often are subjected to incarceration for crimes committed under coercion from men who exercise abusive authority over them, especially in the pursuit of illegal drug trafficking or other criminal enterprises. “Moral crimes,” such as sex outside of marriage, are additional reasons for incarcerating women that do not affect men, and they face stringent evidentiary rules that even result in punishment of rape victims. Conditions in prison can also be more severe for women, as they face increased risk of sexual assault. Manjoo also addressed the issue of young children living in prisons with their mothers, as well as the situation of women who are primary caretakers of children and the devastating effects of their detention on children left behind.

  The special rapporteur stated, “Current domestic and international anti-drug policies are one of the leading causes of rising rates of incarceration of women around the world. . . . In a context of scarce resources and, given that most women offenders rarely pose a threat to the public, it is imperative that States consider alternatives to women’s incarceration.”

  Another significant and extraordinary response to crime in the United States and other countries is the death penalty. The Carter Center takes a firm stand against capital punishment, and I often send a letter to foreign leaders under whose authority people are sentenced to death. Rosalynn and I also intercede with U.S. governors and others who may be able to commute the ultimate punishment to life imprisonment.

  In a case before the U.S. Supreme Court while I was governor in 1972, Furman v. Georgia, the justices issued a de facto moratorium on capital punishment throughout the United States because there were no clear and consistent legal grounds for its imposition. An important question was whether the death penalty was a violation of the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits “cruel and unusual” punishment. When all the states complied with new standards, the Court permitted the resumption of executions in 1976 as a result of Gregg v. Georgia and similar cases from other states. There were just three state executions in the United States while I was governor and president, one in 1977 and two in 1979, but there have been 1,359 since 1980. It is interesting that there have been only three executions by the federal government since 1976.

  The United States is the only country in NATO or North America that still executes its citizens, and Belarus and Suriname are the only exceptions in Europe and South America. In fact, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union specifically prohibits the death penalty among any of its members. Even with a strongly conservative U.S. Supreme Court, there have been encouraging signs that decisions made in other Western democracies and changing American public opinion are having an effect. In 2002 the Court ruled that an “intellectually disabled” person could not be executed; in 2005 the death penalty was not permitted for criminals under the age of eighteen; and in 2008 it was prohibited for rape if no death was involved. Unfortunately, individual states are still permitted to define “intellectually disabled,” and some of them, including Georgia and Florida, make it almost impossible to legally meet the criteria, so that people who are severely handicapped are killed.

  It is clear that there are overwhelming ethical, financial, and religious reasons to abolish this brutal and irrevocable punishment. Although a majority of Americans express support for the death penalty if asked simply if they wish to abolish it altogether, definitive recent polls show that, when given a choice, only 33 percent of Americans would choose the death penalty for murder, while 61 percent would prefer a punishment other than the death penalty. The highest number supports a life sentence without parole plus restitution to the family of the victim. Just 1 percent of police chiefs believe that expanding the death penalty would reduce violent crime. This change in public opinion is steadily restricting capital punishment in state legislatures and the federal courts.

  One argument made by proponents of the death penalty is that it is a strong deterrent to murder and other violent crimes, but evidence shows just the opposite. Whereas the last execution in Canada took place in 1962, in 2011 there were 598 murders in Canada and 14,610 in the United States. In fact, the homicide rate is nearly three times greater in the United States than in any Western European country, all without the death penalty. Southern states carry out over 80 percent of executions but have a higher murder rate than any other region. Texas has by far the most executions. Looking at similar adjacent states, there are more capital crimes in South Dakota, Connecticut, and Virginia (with death sentences) than in neighboring North Dakota, Massachusetts, and West Virginia (without death penalties). There has never been any evidence that the death penalty reduces capital crimes or that crimes increased when executions stopped. In fact, in a study conducted by Professor Gary Potter at Eastern Kentucky University, it was found that homicide rates increase before, during, and immediately after executions. This demonstrates that more people become victimized by lethal violence when the state kills. Here is an excerpt from Potter’s testimony to the Health and Welfare Committee of the Kentucky legislature in March 1999:

  Studies of capital punishment have consistently shown that homicide actually increases in the time period surrounding an execution. Social scientists refer to this as the “brutalization effect.” Execution stimulates homicides in three ways: (1) executions desensitize the public to the immorality of killing, increasing the probability that some people will be motivated to kill; (2) the state legitimizes the notion that vengeance for past misdeeds is acceptable; and (3) executions also have an imitation effect, where people actually follow the example set by the state. After all, people feel if the government can kill its enemies, so can they.

  It is logical that any increase in societal violence will increase the incidence of violence against women. When the state acts in a brutal and lethal manner, this conveys to the community that violence is acceptable.

  And tragic mistakes are prevalent. DNA testing and other factors have caused 143 death sentences to be reversed since I left the governor’s office. So
me devout Christians are among the most fervent advocates of the death penalty, contradicting Jesus Christ and misinterpreting Holy Scriptures and numerous examples of mercy. We remember God’s forgiveness of Cain, who killed Abel, and the adulterer King David, who arranged the killing of Uriah, the husband of Bathsheba, his lover. Jesus dramatically forgave an adulterous woman sentenced to be stoned to death and explained away the “eye for an eye” scripture. There is a stark difference between Protestant and Catholic believers. Many Protestant leaders are in the forefront of demanding the ultimate punishment, while official Catholic policy condemns the death penalty.

  Perhaps the strongest argument against the death penalty is extreme bias in its use against the poor, minorities, and those with diminished mental capacity. Although homicide victims are six times more likely to be black than white, 77 percent of death penalty cases involve white victims. Also, it is hard to imagine a rich white person going to the death chamber after being defended by expensive lawyers. This demonstrates a higher value placed on the lives of white Americans. The prevalence of punishment instead of a chance for rehabilitation is another vivid indication of societal resort to violence, which sets an unintended basis for violence against those who are relatively defenseless.