{"id":795,"date":"2012-04-28T18:42:52","date_gmt":"2012-04-29T01:42:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/gc2012\/?p=795"},"modified":"2012-04-28T18:43:23","modified_gmt":"2012-04-29T01:43:23","slug":"gc2012-500-protest-private-prison-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/gc2012-500-protest-private-prison-industry\/","title":{"rendered":"GC2012: 500 protest private prison industry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bishop Rosemarie Wenner of Germany stands with a sign at a rally against private prisons during the 2012 United Methodist General Conference in Tampa, Fla. The rally was sponsored by United Methodist Women and the United Methodist Task Force on Immigration. A UMNS photo by Paul Jeffrey.<\/em><\/p>\n

A UMNS Report By Kathy L. Gilbert and Linda Bloom*<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chanting \u201cdignity not detention,\u201d singing songs of justice and holding posters and banners, more than 500 endured the noon heat in Tampa to protest the growing private prison industry that especially targets immigrants and people of color.<\/p>\n

Bishop Minerva Carca\u00f1o of the Phoenix Area and Bishop Julius Trimble of the Iowa Area, co-chairs of the United Methodist Immigration Task Force, led the rally. Speakers included a Florida immigration advocate as well, as church members from around the United States, the Philippines and Germany.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a justice rally,\u201d Carca\u00f1o said. \u201cBeing out of immigration status is not a crime; it is a civil offense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trimble called detention the new \u201cJim Crow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDetention is just another word for being put in prison and stuck there,\u201d he said to cheers from the crowd.<\/p>\n

On an average day, the costs of keeping someone in a private prison are $122 per bed or $1.7 million a year, according to Detention Watch Network, an advocacy group. Something is wrong with a state that spends more to detain and imprison a person than to educate that person, Trimble said.<\/p>\n

Desmond Meade, a member of the Florida Immigration Coalition and the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, spoke about his personal passion for incarcerated people.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was six years ago. I was standing on a railroad track on a hot August day thinking of jumping in front of a train,\u201d he said. He had just been released from prison, was homeless and addicted to alcohol, and he felt he had no place to go, no dignity, no hope.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy the grace of God, I am a second-year law student, and I\u2019m here to say nothing is impossible with God on your side.\u201d<\/p>\n

In advocating for immigrants, Meade said he found the private prison industry, under the guise of \u201cget tough on crime laws, protecting our borders, zero tolerance, no child left behind\u201d has actually been pushing policies detrimental to communities.<\/p>\n

Big business<\/h3>\n

The United Methodist Task Force on Immigration links the criminalization of \u201cout of status\u201d immigrants with the mass incarceration of people of color in the United States, Carca\u00f1o said. Sixty percent of the 2.3 million people now jailed in the United States are members of racial or ethnic minority groups, with one of out every eight black males in their 20s incarcerated on any given day.<\/p>\n

Trimble said private prisons promise states big profits if the states can promise 90 percent occupancy for 20 years.<\/p>\n

But there is good news for United Methodists, he added. In 2011, the United Methodist Board of Pension and Health Benefits prohibited investments in companies deriving revenue from private prisons, selling $1 million in stock divested from private prison corporations. The board added private prisons as the sixth screen guided by the denomination\u2019s Social Principles.<\/p>\n

The Rev. Audrey Warren, pastor of Branches United Methodist Church in Florida City, Fla., and a member of the task force\u2019s Rapid Response Team, told the story of four immigrant members of her community who were stopped and harassed by authorities. One was detained and deported six months later to Nicaragua.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe immigrant is not a stranger,\u201d she said. \u201cThe immigrant is not the other. The immigrant is United Methodist.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Our parishioners\u2019<\/h3>\n

Migrants, \u201cthe most vulnerable people in the world,\u201d face the double victimization of performing \u201cdirty, difficult and dangerous\u201d jobs and being blamed by others \u201cfor their sorry situation,\u201d said the Rev. Connie Mella, Mindanao Philippines Annual Conference.<\/p>\n

In the Philippines, for example, an estimated 3,500 people leave the country every day in search of work, but at least six return home every day in coffins, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the world is our parish, these people are our parishioners,\u201d Mella declared. \u201cBecause they are human beings, we need to uphold their human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bishop Rosemarie Wenner, who leads the Germany Area, talked about policies against migrants in Europe and the battle in her own country to stop the construction of a detention center within a new airport being built in Berlin.<\/p>\n

Delyn Celec, a student at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Va., said being at the rally was important to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to be aware of all God\u2019s children and what we can do to create an equal church and country with equitable laws,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Sean McRoberts, from the Iowa Annual (regional) Conference, said the rally was \u201ca call to come together and be more aware of what our government is doing \u2014 supposedly on our behalf.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the rally\u2019s conclusion, Carca\u00f1o announced that the Council of Bishops has agreed to send letters opposing prison privatization to all 50 U.S. states and Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n

*Gilbert is a multimedia reporter for the young adult content team at United Methodist Communications, Nashville, Tenn. Bloom is a United Methodist News Service multimedia reporter based in New York. Follow her at http:\/\/twitter.com\/umcscribe<\/a>. Amanda Bachus, director of Spanish resources, United Methodist Communications, and Elliot Wright, former communications staff with the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

News media contact: Tim Tanton, Tampa, Fla., (813) 574-4837, through May 4; after May 4, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470, newsdesk@umcom.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bishop Rosemarie Wenner of Germany stands with a sign at a rally against private prisons during the 2012 United Methodist General Conference in Tampa, Fla. The rally was sponsored by United Methodist Women and the United Methodist Task Force on Immigration. A UMNS photo by Paul Jeffrey. A UMNS Report By Kathy L. Gilbert and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[71,75,31],"class_list":{"0":"post-795","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-umns","8":"tag-divest","9":"tag-freedom","10":"tag-umns"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/wenner-protest.jpg?fit=640%2C600&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-cP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":798,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795\/revisions\/798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}