This afternoon our class took a trip down to Jackson, GA to visit the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison.
Some facts about this prison:
1. This is where all male persons sentenced to serve time in prison for a felony go in the state of Georgia before they are classified and sent to the location where they will serve their sentence.
2. This is where all death row inmates in Georgia are located and this is where all executions take place in the state of Georgia. There are currently over 100 men on death row in Georgia and one woman.
3. Last year, over 14,000 men came through this prison.
4. Today, 2/10/10, 109 men came into this prison.
5. There is one full-time chaplain for around 2,000 prisoners.
Now, onto my reflections...
For those who know me, they know not many things strike me silent. Well, today did. Entering the prison was very surreal and very solemn for me. To walk down long hallways escorted by guards while prisoners immediately stopped their tasks to turned to face the wall was surrreal. To look in a cell while 100 men stood absolutely still beside us, listening to us ask questions about them was surreal. To be walk beside the gurney where executions occur was surreal. To be in the cell where, in a little less than two weeks, Melbert Ray Ford is scheduled to be executed was anguish-producing. Why, oh why, is our country intent on avenging death with more death? After leaving the execution room, all of us walked back in silence...In fact, I don't even know what to say now. Or, maybe, its that I don't want to say anything. Maybe I was struck silent in order to honor the sacred reverence of the place we visited today. Even as I am writing this, I wonder why I have chosen the words sacred and reverent to describe this prison. For some reason, it was a very sacred place for me...a place where God most definitely is present. At the end of our visit, Chaplain Harrell, shared that he knows God is present in that place. I knew this even before he said it, because I felt God's presence the whole time we were there. I wonder...do other people know this...do they know that God is present in the prisons? Do the prisoners know this? Do the judges and juries who sentence humans to time in prison know this? Do people who are scared of prisons and the people inside them know this? Does the church know this?
I'll probably have some more reflections tomorrow, but this is all I can manage tonight as I call out to God in anguish for our brothers and sisters in the U.S. prison system.
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I agree with your choice of words MK. Sacred and reverent are perfect descriptions. I didn't say it, but was wanting to describe the chamber as "holy ground". It goes with our conversation on the trip back, despite what inmates did to get themselves into prison, even onto death row, they remain children of God. State sanctioned execution is in stark contrast to the gospel. Witnessing to that and recognizing that just as executions causes us to weep, God weeps also. It really was a sacred place, a part of a sacred journey of lives.
ReplyDeletePeace.
Will
The thing that most stood out to me:
ReplyDeleteSomeone asked about the mood of death row inmates as they are facing the gurney (sp?). The good Reverend kind of chuckled. He said it varies, but what's weird is that people, for the first time in a long time, come alive. They've been locked down and controlled for so long, they don't remember what it is to really live. He says to them, "well, I'm sorry this is what its taken to make you feel that way." Rev. Harrell is real with folks and doesn't BS anybody. He is simply present, in anyway he can be, with these men whom Christ died for.