The least of these…

And the King shall answer and say to them, Truly I say to you, Inasmuch as you have done it to one of the least of these my brothers, you have done it to me. – Matthew 25:40

Warning that Minnesotans are facing a time of "pain and sacrifice," Governor Pawlenty and other state officials said they would slash state spending and rethink the role of government in the aftermath of a $5.2 billion deficit over the next two and a half years.

Accompanying the article about the state deficit and public official’s response, the StarTribune posted a survey asking readers, “Where would you make budget cuts to help reduce the state’s deficit?”

After 5718 responses, the top candidate for cutting in readers’ minds was, not surprisingly, “prisons.”

It’s understandable that given a choice between cutting funding to health care or schools and cutting funding to prisons, citizens would choose the latter, but the response and even the wording of the question pointed out an intellectual disconnection which we need to address.

Many taxpayers seem to believe that in tight budget times the choice is between funding one’s family or children and funding some faceless felon locked behind bars that good community minded folks will never see. That’s a false choice.

In 2006 the state of Minnesota had about 17,000 people incarcerated in jails and state and federal correctional facilities. At the same time, over 130,000 other “lawbreakers” are on parole or probation, living and working in our communities. Corrections in Minnesota is not and never has been a “lock em up and throw away the key” operation.

If we are going to cut funding to prisons, let’s take a new look at our sentencing guidelines to see if we can reduce the number of people we incarcerate. Our prisons should be a last resort for those who are too dangerous to live among us. Over the years, sentencing guidelines have wrapped the prison system’s arms around people who could be supervised successfully in the community. As we take a new look at the role of government, let’s also take a new look at our relationship with one another. Let’s not incarcerate more than we have to and when we do have to, let’s make sure that we do everything we can to prepare the those in correctional facilities for their eventual return to the community.

As the bible says, those incarcerated are truly “the least of these my brothers.” And during tough times, families ought to stick together.