Not Forgotten? Criminal Justice Reform and Us

Musical Prelude: ‘Let My People Go’ played by George Ireland

Opening Words of Welcome and Chalice Lighting:
beginning with a minute’s silence to honour Veronica Needa

(holding chalice)

Friends, our chalice flame is lit, this symbol of our worldwide community. It’s lit this morning to honour Veronica Needa, a longtime member of our congregation, who died on Thursday. Veronica is someone who spanned the countries of our world and touched the hearts of so many, especially through her keen engagement with Playback Theatre. Born and brought up in Hong Kong, she moved to North Kensington with her mother many years ago and has been an inspiration to many, especially younger people setting out into the world of theatre. Let us sit for a minute in silence together, holding Veronica and her friends in our hearts with this candle flame to connect us all.

Thank you everyone and thank you Veronica – your shining light lit up rooms and touched many hearts. (replace chalice)

And now let me welcome all of you – those of you online joining us from your homes and those of you here in person at Essex Church, here in Notting Hill. It is good to gather together with others, in times of grief as in times of joy, it’s what we humans do – sharing the journeys of our lives, telling our stories, helping one another along the way. This thing called life is not a solitary pursuit, it is a shared endeavour. And in our service today we’re taking a look at an issue too often hidden from most of us – the systems by which we deal with wrongdoers in our society. (pause)

Hymn 134 (grey): ‘Our World is One World’

And we’ll start by singing together a hymn that really expresses for me the important reminder that this is one world and that our actions and our choices and attitudes will always affect other people. That seems a particularly relevant message this week as we move towards international Earth Day next weekend and get ready here in London for The Big One as Extinction Rebellion’s 4 day demonstration is called – a demonstration supported by over 100 other organisations, including us Unitarians, the GreenSpirit group, CAFOD, Greenpeace. This hymn is in the grey hymnbook as number 134 and the words will also appear on your screens – here is the first verse: Our world is one world, what touches one affects us all, the seas that wash us round about, the clouds that cover us, the rains that fall. Let’s sing.

Our world is one world:
what touches one affects us all —
the seas that wash us round about,
the clouds that cover us,
the rains that fall.

Our world is one world:
the thoughts we think affect us all —
the way we build our attitudes,
with love or hate, we make
a bridge or wall.

Our world is one world:
its ways of wealth affect us all —
the way we spend, the way we share,
who are the rich or poor,
who stand or fall?

Our world is one world,
just like a ship that bears us all —
where fear and greed make many holes,
but where our hearts can hear
a different call.

Candles of Joy and Concern:

Each week when we gather together, we share a simple ritual of candles of joy and concern, an opportunity to light a candle and share something that is in our heart with the community. So we’ve an opportunity now, for anyone who would like to do so, to light a candle and say a few words about what it represents. We’ll invite people in the building first, and take all of those in one go, and then I’ll call on the people on Zoom to share.

If you want to come up and share a joy or a concern we ask you to go to the free standing microphone. If you want to take your mask off to do this you now can, though you don’t have to, and I’ll take care of the actual lighting of the candle for you over here. Please do still get up close to the microphone as that will help everyone hear (including the people at home). You can take the microphone out of the stand if it’s not at a good height for you – it’s still going to be important to speak up – and have the microphone pointing right at your mouth. Thank you.

(in person candles)

And if that’s everyone in the room we’ll go over to the people on Zoom next – you might like to switch to gallery view at this stage – just unmute yourselves when you are ready and speak out – and we should be able to hear you and see you up on the big screen here in the church.

(zoom candles)

And I’m going to light one more candle, as we often do, to represent all those joys and concerns that we hold in our hearts this day, but which we don’t feel able to speak out loud. (light candle)

Time of Prayer & Reflection:

Let’s join in a time of reflection and prayer, holding in our hearts all those we have heard spoken of this morning.
May the spirit of compassion help us to feel the suffering of the peoples and the creatures of the world.
May the spirit of love melt cold hearts that trample on human rights.
May the spirit of beauty help us to preserve the unique splendours of each community.
May the spirit of wisdom help us to treasure the mystical insights of all religions.
May the spirit of patience and endurance strengthen those who are oppressed and exiled from their homes.
May the spirit of courage strengthen those who speak for those who have no voice.
May the spirit of non-violence bring healing peace and justice to all the peoples of the world.
May the spirit of unity help us to recognise our oneness with all people and all of creation.
May the spirit of justice unite us, dissolving all separations and seeming divisions, bringing wholeness once to all human endeavours.
And in that spirit of justice and in a few quiet, shared moments I invite you now to send your thoughts and prayers where you feel there is need – be that places within yourself, in those you love or in our wider world ……
And may the blessings of love and compassion and justice be with all beings this day, Amen.

Responsive Reading 662 (grey): ‘Strange and Foolish Walls’ by A Powell Davies

And let’s now join in saying a reading – it’s written as a responsive reading but let’s keep it simple and simply all say all the words if we so wish. The words will appear on your screens and can also be found on your hymn sheets here in church or in the back of the hymn books – where it is number 662. The reading is called – these strange and foolish walls’ it was written by a fine Unitarian minister originally from Wales but who served the All Souls congregation in Washington DC for many years, A Powell Davies. He’s exploring the ways we separate ourselves from one another – failing to remember that we are kindred beings.

The years of all of us are short, our lives precarious.
Our days and nights go hurrying on and there is scarcely time to do the little that we might.

Yet we find time for bitterness, for petty treason and evasion.
What can we do to stretch our hearts enough to lose their littleness?

Here we are – all of us – all upon this planet, bound together in a common destiny,
Living our lives between the briefness of the daylight and the dark.

Kindred in this, each lighted by the same precarious, flickering flame of life,
how does it happen that we are not kindred in all things else?
How strange and foolish are these walls of separation that divide us!

Hymn (on sheet): When I Needed a Neighbour’ (remaining seated)

What a simple yet powerful message there is in that last line – How strange and foolish are these walls of separation that divide us! And a similar message comes in our next hymn ‘when I needed a neighbour’. Let’s stay seated as we sing this hymn and maybe think of those who we have separated ourselves from – those we hate or disagree with or disapprove of, those we are frightened of, those we just ignore and might even have forgotten that they exist – so far removed are they from our circles, our lives. When I needed a neighbour were you there – George will play the tune through once for us before we join in.

When I needed a neighbour
Were you there, were you there?
When I needed a neighbour were you there?

And the creed and the colour
And the name won’t matter, were you there?

I was hungry and thirsty
Were you there, were you there?
I was hungry and thirsty, were you there?

And the creed and the colour
And the name won’t matter, were you there?

I was cold, and in prison
Were you there, were you there?
I was cold, and in prison, were you there?

And the creed and the colour
And the name won’t matter, were you there?

When I needed a shelter
Were you there, were you there?
When I needed a shelter, were you there?

And the creed and the colour
And the name won’t matter, were you there?

Wherever you travel
I’ll be there, I’ll be there.
Wherever you travel, I’ll be there.

And the creed and the colour
And the name won’t matter, were you there?

Words for Meditation:

On our order of service there are some famous words from Matthew’s Gospel chapter 25. This whole chapter contains perhaps the most powerful statement of Jesus’ key teachings on social justice, on the need for us humans to re-balance the imbalances of our societies. This is the verse that is echoed in the hymn we’ve just sung. ‘For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Matthew’s Gospel ch.25 v.35. Jesus goes on to explain that when such care is shown to any person it is as though we have cared for Jesus himself. ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Let’s breathe that message of oneness in for a moment as we move into a quiet time for our own thoughts, considering our own ways of being in this complex, multi-faceted world of ours.

Let’s find as comfy position as we can, and ready yourself for a time of turning inwards, maybe softening your gaze, softening the muscles of your face, your head, neck and shoulders, allowing all the muscles of your body to ease and release, feeling your body against the chair or other place you’re resting, aware of your feet if they’re touching the floor, or simply aware of gravity gently bringing you in connection with mother earth herself, on who we live our days. We’ll spend a few minutes in silence, which will end with a chime from our bell and then George our pianist will be playing a particularly soothing piece of music for us, written by JS Bach. Let’s enter the fellowship of stillness together now.

Period of Silence and Stillness (~3 minutes) – end with a bell

Musical Interlude

Reading: ‘Speak to us of Crime and Punishment’ from ‘The Prophet’ by Kahlil Gibran – read by Brian

This reading is called ‘On Crime and Punishment’ and it’s abridged and adapted from the famous poetic work called ‘The Prophet’ by the Lebanese Christian mystic Kahlil Gibran.
It’s a bit longer than some of our readings and Gibran is making the classic point that we need to replace dualism, good and bad, right and wrong, in our thinking and ways of being in the world. Only when we admit to our own errors and limitations can we truly start to relate with people whose lives seem so very different from our own. Here are Gibran’s words:
Then one of the judges of the city stood forth and said, Speak to us of Crime and Punishment.
And he answered, saying:
It is when your spirit goes wandering upon the wind,
That you, alone and unguarded, commit a wrong unto others and therefore unto yourself.
And for that wrong committed must you knock and wait a while unheeded at the gate of the blessed.
…
Oftentimes have I heard you speak of one who commits a wrong as though he were not one of you, but a stranger unto you and an intruder upon your world.
But I say that even as the holy and the righteous cannot rise beyond the highest which is in each one of you,
So the wicked and the weak cannot fall lower than the lowest which is in you also.
And as a single leaf turns not yellow but with the silent knowledge of the whole tree,
So the wrong-doer cannot do wrong without the hidden will of you all.
Like a procession you walk together towards your god-self.
You are the way and the wayfarers.
And when one of you falls down he falls for those behind him, a caution against the stumbling stone.
Ay, and he falls for those ahead of him, who though faster and surer of foot, yet removed not the stumbling stone.
….
Yea, the guilty is oftentimes the victim of the injured,
And still more often the condemned is the burden bearer for the guiltless and unblamed.
You cannot separate the just from the unjust and the good from the wicked;
For they stand together before the face of the sun.
…
And if any of you would punish in the name of righteousness and lay the axe unto the evil tree, let him see to its roots;
And verily he will find the roots of the good and the bad, the fruitful and the fruitless, all entwined together in the silent heart of the earth.
And you judges who would be just,
What judgement pronounce you upon him who though honest in the flesh yet is the thief in spirit?
What penalty lay you upon him who slays in the flesh yet is himself slain in the spirit?
And how prosecute you him who in action is a deceiver and an oppressor,
Yet who also is aggrieved and outraged?
… And you who would understand justice, how shall you unless you look upon all deeds in the fullness of light?
Only then shall you know that the erect and the fallen are but one person standing in twilight between the night of their small-self and the day of their god-self,
And that the corner-stone of the temple is not higher than the lowest stone in its foundation.

Address: ‘Prisons, Prisoners, Us’ by Rev. Sarah Tinker

I wanted to invite our current Home Secretary or Prisons Minister to today’s service so they could hear what I have to say about the state of our criminal justice system – but they’re probably too busy. They’ve both got plenty of other problems on their desks. And there are quite a few other politicians who I wish were sitting here with us now. Because when it comes down to issues of crime and punishment it’s surprising how many politicians want to be seen as ‘tough on crime’. Our national discourse on crime is often dispiritingly limited to ‘lock em up for longer’. And as a society I would say that most of us for most of the time tend to forget what’s going on in our courts and our prisons. Most of us are mercifully not involved in crime.

On the front of our order of service today there’s a quote from Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky – he writes that the ‘The degree of civilisation in a society can be judged by entering its prisons’. In this address I’m taking Dostoevsky’s quote and applying it to our criminal justice system as a whole. Because our system is broken, is crying out for review and reform. Our justice system is no longer fit for purpose and does not show our society to be either civilised or just.

I sound like I know what I’m talking about. But my dealings with our justice system have been mercifully brief. I’ve never sat on a jury – I wonder if any of you have? I’ve had my ‘day in court’ as one of a group of squatters taken to the High Court in the Strand back in the late 1970s. I’ve visited someone in a Young Offenders Institution – a brief glimpse into another world where well meaning staff and stressed family members tried to deal with angry young men who had little to do except watch TV and play video games for hours on end. I’ve been a witness in a court hearing and have supported others called as witnesses. I’ve written character statements for people who were being tried. Those few experiences were more than enough to tell me that if we can avoid our justice system, either as wrong doers or as those who have been wronged, then we should probably thank our lucky stars. If by chance your life has been involved in courts and crimes – my apologies for sounding in any way glib. If you felt comfortable telling me your story then please do get in touch in some way.

Most of what I’ll say today comes not from my own limited experiences but from a barrister who has worked for over 30 years in our courts. Chris Daw, Kings Counsel, has written a book called ‘Justice on Trial: Radical Solutions for a System at Breaking Point’ and he was a speaker at our recent Unitarian Annual Meetings. He’d been invited by our issues Penal and Social Affairs Panel – which has for decades being working to tell us Unitarians what’s going on in our prisons as well as highlighting many other areas that need a light of awareness and responsibility shining upon them. For shouldn’t we as citizens be fully aware of what is done in our name?

But just as importantly I think we need to own our own leanings towards punitive responses towards bad behaviour. When someone in our society does something wrong – something cruel, something violent, mean, despicable, something incomprehensible perhaps – how do we respond? The urge to lock dangerous people away is understandable isn’t it.? Fear is a natural response to violence.

But how does Kahlil Gibran put it in the reading we heard from Brian earlier on? ‘And if any of you would punish in the name of righteousness and lay the axe unto the evil tree, let him see to its roots; and verily he will find the roots of the good and the bad, the fruitful and the fruitless, all entwined together in the silent heart of the earth.’

We humans often think in dualisms, don’t we – we can point to the good people and the bad. When thinking how best to deal with those who break society’s laws we need to go beyond such simplistic divisions don’t we. For we are all inter-connected. Our lives are inter-woven and at the roots of some criminal behaviour there are social injustices that could be reduced – if we all had the will to reduce them. Poverty, ethnicity and our care and educational systems can be seen as influencing factors of criminal behaviour. Put simply, if you are poor, black, male, addicted to drugs, or have, as a child, been in our so-called care system – then you are far more likely to end up in prison. Before any of us who consider ourselves more fortunate then judge any other person, we need to consider how we might have behaved had our life circumstances between similarly shaped.

Of course, there will be people who are dangerous to society and must be locked up for the good of all. For some crimes the dreadful rallying cry of the right wing media – ‘lock em up … and throw away the key’ may be required – for some people spending the rest of their lives in jail may be the correct response. Even in those cases I think a civilised society should offer someone chance to turn their lives around, chance to educate themselves, chance to come to terms with what they have done. But most prisoners will eventually be released and we should be concerned that the poor state of our prisons means that prisoners are sent back out into society in probably a worse state than when they were imprisoned. Because prison education systems are less available to them and drug taking in prison is shockingly common. In an overcrowded prison perhaps all that can be achieved is that you survive. And on release, if the probation service is so diminished that it cannot help you find work and a place to live, and if, like too many prisoners, you are now estranged from your family – then wouldn’t most of us turn to criminal friends to help us get started on ‘life outside’.

Chris Daw, the barrister who wrote this book, highlighted for us in his talk that the drug trade is one of the key drivers behind criminal behaviour. Because we as a society choose to criminalise drug-takers they are forced to pay high prices for their daily fix of heroin. And that financial need is the reason for much criminal behaviour – breaking into cars, homes, stealing on our streets, shoplifting. Countries such as Switzerland and Portugal where addicts can receive the drugs they need safely from medical facilities – such countries see a drop in crime, and a corresponding drop in prisoner numbers.

I’ve promised this book to a couple of people already but it will eventually be in the church library down in the basement. It’s both dispiriting and remarkably inspiring – reading it reminded me painfully of our society’s terrible injustices. But Chris Daw’s stance is spiritually in accord with our Unitarian emphasis on unity. So I’ll end by quoting his closing paragraph from the chapter entitled ‘Why people are neither good nor evil’. He writes: ‘if we are ever to break free of the cycle of crime and violence, perpetuated as much by our criminal justice system as by those behind its bars, we need to travel beyond the binary of good and evil. We need to see criminal behaviour as a series of acts that cause our society and its citizens harm and for which are all – to some degree – responsible. It achieves nothing to place the perpetrators of those acts into some category that marks them out as different from the rest of us.’

Let’s use our voices to spread this message – a society needs to invest highly in all its care systems so that nobody is forgotten, nobody is allowed to fall by the wayside, for each of us is neighbour – one to another and the roots of our living are always inter-woven. Amen.

Prison Information
• The UK has the highest prison population in western Europe.

• This week’s prison population is 84,372 in England & Wales. This number has doubled since the 1990s.

• Leeds Prison is currently our most over-crowded jail at 172% of its intended occupancy numbers.

• 7% of prisoners have tried heroin for the first time in prison.

• 70% of prisoners have used illegal drugs in the year before their imprisonment.

• Recidivism rates vary but are generally high amongst prisoners in this country, in some areas as high as 70%.

• Re-offending rates have increased as the probation service has been reduced.

• 1% of the UK population will be in the care system as children, yet 30% of prisoners will have been in care.

• Many children in the care system will receive a criminal record whilst still under the age of 16.

• Black and minority ethnic males make up 14% of the population yet are 27% of the prison population.

• 47% of prisoners have no formal educational qualifications

Useful Sources of Information:

The Howard League
The Prison Reform Trust
The Unitarian Penal & Social Affairs Group
The Prison Learning Alliance
The Prison Phoenix Trust
Book: ‘Justice on Trial’ by Chris Daw KC

Hymn 298 (grey): ‘Wake, Now, My Senses’

(Sarah will introduce the hymn)

Wake, now, my senses, and hear the earth call;
feel the deep power of being in all;
keep with the web of creation your vow,
giving, receiving as love shows us how.

Wake, now, my reason, reach out to the new;
join with each pilgrim who quests for the true;
honour the beauty and wisdom of time;
suffer thy limit, and praise the sublime.

Wake, now, compassion, give heed to the cry;
voices of suffering fill the wide sky;
take as your neighbour both stranger and friend,
praying and striving their hardship to end.

Wake, now, my conscience, with justice thy guide;
join with all people whose rights are denied;
take not for granted a privileged place;
God’s love embraces the whole human race.

Wake, now, my vision of ministry clear;
brighten my pathway with radiance here;
mingle my calling with all who would share;
work toward a planet transformed by our care.

Sharing of News, Announcements, Introductions

With thanks as always to those working behind the scenes on technical support – Ramona here in church and Maria as our online host, Jane for preparing the orders of service and the service script and recording that you’ll be able to find online. Thanks to George for music and Brian for reading. Other announcements can be found on the back of our order of service sheet or our congregational weekly email.

Closing Blessing: ‘With love and justice in our hearts, seeking the common good of all’

So let us leave this sacred time and space with love and justice in our hearts, seeking the common good of all, knowing that each and every life is inextricably connected one with another. If one suffers we all suffer, if one falls we all fall, if one life is lifted up and healed we may all know what it is to be healed and made whole once more. So may we hold that aspiration – for the common good of all – as a guide to our living – that all may have chance to flourish in these spring days. Amen, go well all of you and blessed be.

Closing Music

Rev. Sarah Tinker

16th April 2023