Witnessing: Stand Together. Make Their Voices Be Heard.
I put myself in jail. I am accountable for my actions. I lost a friend over this. I blame myself and nobody else. However, jails are diabolically designed to increase mental distress and illness. The rate of suicide in jails is higher than state or federal prisons. County jails are old and overcrowded. The fluorescent lights never go off even at night. There are fire code issues.
Inmates actually go hungry inside. The private communications companies controlling phone calls and video calls prey on low-income families with exorbitant fees and transaction fees where counties collect commissions. It only hurts families on the outside, not just the inmates. National policy groups are working on food and communication justice. Jail profiteerring by private vendors is a disgrace. Jails actually charge inmates and their families rent or daily “keep” fees.
No chaplain or chapel available. No men’s group or peer group. No drug addiction counseling meetings. It is a lost opportunity. More on all this in later blogs.
I am not complaining. I am witnessing. Christian Witness is sharing your experience and journey with Jesus.
I visited Guatemala in the 1990’s during a civil war on a peace mission with Witness for Peace. Aid workers do get kidnapped but we went anyway. I came back to go on tour in high school and college classrooms about the atrocities. That is Christian Witnessing and what I am doing here.
My actions sent me there. But with someone who has high levels of education, financial and social capital, the question becomes “Kevin, now what are going to do with this to bring light to the injustices in jails and prisons?” All the inmates knew it was almost easier to get drugs in prisons than on the streets. Hell, the guards are in on the drug trade inside jails and prisons.
I am witnessing. I cannot look away at the injustice while my brothers and sisters are still inside.
Inspired by Fr. John Drexel, O.M.I
Sao Paulo, Brazil
World of Children, Honoree, 1998 Humanitarian Award
“In 1984, Clive Fleury, of the Argentine Broadcasting Corporation, made a documentary film about Latin America in which I participated and where Brazil was highlighted as regards the Church and the situation of needy children.
With great surprise, later found out that the film was shown in the USA on National Public Television, BBC in England and Ireland, in Japan, and many countries in Europe and Canada. During this film I have been called a “Rebel Priest”
I am not a Rebel Priest.
I am a human being that has been profoundly overwhelmed and shocked by the fact of 500,000 children dying in a year on this planet earth.
A priest that cannot live the Word of God without being scandalized and indignant before the misery of Brazilian children. A person that cannot be silent, face to face, with their inhuman and almost diabolical situation of injustice and desequality and much less, cross one’s arms and say “What has all this got to do with me?”
I am not a Rebel Priest, but one who has become restless and concerned, struggles that his passage on this earth be not in vain, but with a Christian meaning. Someone who believes in man’s transcendental dimension and that the Kingdom of God should begin here and now.
This is our daily struggle and challenge.”
-John Drexel, O.M.I
Source: Drexel, O.M.I, John, Iannone, Leila Rentroia. Poverty Child: A Case of Life or Death. Editora Moderna Ltda., 1989
