Isaiah 61:1–4, 8–11
Those who have been involved in prison abolition are well aware of one of the first questions asked by those who are unfamiliar: “What will we do with criminals?” Abolitionists are well aware of the need to push back on several assumptions that this question holds. First, that any group of people can be separated as “criminals.” We are all one body, the children of God, and what a legal system labels one cannot impugn that those in prison are still our neighbors. Second, that the community’s role is that of punishing, rather than holding accountable. Still, the question behind the question is what abolitionists must answer: “What will be different from how we do things now?”
The prophet Isaiah provides a template for how God answers that question. After forcefully declaring that God proclaims release for the imprisoned (a declaration Jesus would later name as the focus of his ministry), Isaiah spells out what God plans for “all who mourn.”
“They will be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, to display his glory. They shall build up the ancient ruins, they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.”
God’s vision, for all who mourn, is that they actively pursue the rebuilding and restoring of what’s been ruined. This justice of God is not a retribution, it’s restoration. The vision God has is for people – those who’ve been harmed and those who have harmed others– to rebuild. And God goes further than just seeing restoration for current wrongs, saying that the devastations of many generations will be repaired.
In light of these prophecies, the church must communicate that abolition is for the good of all the community. When God is involved, God involves all in the work of resurrection, and the restoration goes back generations. For U.S. Christians, this also means supporting financial reparations for harms such as slavery, Jim Crow, and the drug war. Christians must involve themselves in giving land back to Indigenous communities, protecting current lands from unwanted development, and seeking to support expungement of marijuana crimes any time their jurisdiction seeks to legalize marijuana.
Christians follow in Christ’s steps by also embodying this prophetic vision that Isaiah lays claim to, and seeking to rebuild and repair all that has been broken.
Mitchell Atencio (he/him/his) is a discalced writer and photographer based in Arizona.