When Statistics Become Reality

At CSM Chicago, we take our groups on prayer tours of either the West or South side of the city on the night that they arrive. Here is some information from the West side tour:


The Cook County jail has almost 100,000 detainees pass through its doors every year

Since it's a jail, that means no one being detained has been convicted of the charges they are being held for. In Illinois, one is held in jail until bailed out or taken to trial. The system is very backed up, so some people sit in jail for months upon months, no matter if they are innocent or guilty.

Once convicted of a crime, a person loses the right to vote and to receive federal loans for further education.


Today I met a woman at the cafe who was completing community service hours for her probation. She told me that she spent five and a half months locked up at 26 & California (a familiar term for the jail) before she was ever put on trial. She then told me that she is trying to better herself, but there is no possible way for her to go back to school because she is inelegible for loans. Furthermore, her efforts to find employment are futile- as she said, "Once you check the 'yes' box that you have been convicted, no one wants to hire you." She told me that she is doing everything in her power to live up to the terms of her probation and that she desperately wants to find a job and move on. It was with great frustration that she confided to me her crime- a DUI.

Now, I will be the first to speak against drunk driving- few things frustrate me more than this irresponsible decision. But as I talked to this woman, I found myself incensed that this conviction had the power to completely ruin a woman's life, while so many face only temporary (if any) consequences for the same crime. Surely this is an example of injustice.

So many like to cling to and declare the fact that we live in a country founded on Christian principles. If this is true, where do we see redemptive grace in this story? Where is this woman's second (and third and fourth and thousandth) chance to get it right? I'm not saying there should not be prisons and consequences for serious crimes. Obviously this is a necessary infrastructure for our society to function. What I am wondering is where is the church in this legal system mess? Are we doing all we can to step up for these men and women once they are released from incarceration? How are we helping them move on from their mistakes and into a life of productivity? Are we compelled to make their burden our own?

Yes, they have broken the law. But then I think of how I break God's laws constantly in my permanently sinful and broken state and compassion for these people is no longer optional. It becomes an obligatory, necessary response to love my fellow broken neighbor.

What would happen if the church responded to this population the same way that God mercifully responds to us? How could this world look if grace was our response?