Prison Sunday 17[th] November 2013:  St. Dionysius Church Market  Harborough
. Oh, God, take our minds and think through them, take our lips and speak through them, and take our hearts and set them on fire.

 " I tell you" , Jesus said, " there will be more joy in Heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who have no need of repentance. " 
I'm grateful for this chance to tell you something about the Sycamore Tree Course, run by Prison Fellowship, in which I recently participated.   
It's a story-  in my case a first experience- of  6 or 7  volunteers, plus 21 men at Gartree Prison,  most serving life sentence,  and 18 hours  of interaction between us,   Te frist object  was first to connect with each other, secondly to get a message across and for the men to receive it and through that message to help to  bring  some closure to victims and offenders and then for offenders a changed outlook on life and real hope for the future   
But first I want to put that into a wider context.
In 1973 when I was serving on the staff of the British Embassy in Washington.  we had a contact in President Nixon's White House, a lawyer and Counsel to the president called Charles "Chuck"  Colson. 
It was a time when few had anything good to say about the Nixon Administration following the revelations in the Washington Post newspaper about the break in at the Headquarters of the Democratic Party inWatergate Building. 
Colson was generally regarded as the President's hatchet man.  He was quoted as saying that he would walk over his own grandmother to get Nixon re-elected.  He had, it was confidently believed, never had a humanitarian thought. 
Forty years ago Colson was not thinking of reaching out to prison inmates, still less of  changing the penal system 
He was however,  and unknown to me, in serious trouble for getting the Internal Revenue Service to target so called "enemies" of the President with harassing tax investigations.  He was a worried man.  Then someone gave him C S Lewis's book " Mere Christianity" and it changed his life. 
When news of Colson's conversion to Christianity leaked to the press. One newspaper's columnist wrote, "If Mr. Colson can repent of his sins, there just has to be hope for everybody." 

In 1974 Colson entered a plea of guilty to obstruction of justice and went to prison,  as both a new Christian and as the first member of the Nixon Administration to be jailed for Watergate-related charges. He served seven months 

After leaving prison, Colson founded Prison Fellowship Ministries in 1976, which has since become the world's largest outreach to prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families. It was founded in this country in 1979. The ideal of Prison Fellowship is that every prisoner should have access to prayer and practical support. In this country we do this through over 1700 volunteers and 115 prayer groups;  and practical initiatives such as the Sycamore Tree Course .
Chuck Colson died last year a penitent Christian,  who had in my view been blessed with a redemption that is given to few of us to achieve.  He had a worldwide impact and proclaimed a powerful message.  In this country the nearest example of such redemption by a public figure in my lifetime is that of John Profumo, the former MP for Kettering. 
Chuck Colson expressed his faith in these words. "I know the Resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it.  Each of them suffered  in some way, some  beaten, tortured,  some stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren't true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world-and they couldn't keep a lie for three weeks. You're telling me 12 Apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible." 
HERE IN Britain. Crime and punishment are of course  two of the most controversial and fraught issues in our society.   A senior man in the Home Office told me a few years ago that a hundred years ago a man could walk the streets with a bag of opium in his pocket, an underage girl on his arm and a gun in his belt and the policeman, had he known of it,  would have wished him goodnight. 
" Tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime " was Tony Blair's memorable slogan.  I did some research.  In i997, the year he became Prime Minister,  there were 52 new laws that specified a possible term of imprisonment for those who broke them; by 2003, the annual tally was 181 new laws and there were another 174 in 2005 and 133 in 2007. 
Bizarrely, fishermen who do not ask for permission before fishing on the Lower Esk in Scotland can be sent to prison , as can anyone caught importing "an unauthorised veterinary product". And our laws lead to the 86,000 men and women who are today locked up in this country. That figure is, according to my calculation,  roughly 4 times greater than the population of Market Harborough.  
Yet most people do not want to know about prison and I feel that we need to examine our consciences about that.  
The number of people incarcerated in this country has doubled in the last 15 years to the point where we now have more prisoners than any other European  Union country.  That doubling of the prison population is due to the primarily punitive nature of the judicial system  rather than any significant increase in criminal activity.  It is what we call retributive justice. So when someone commits a crime, the object is to catch the offender, put them on trial and punish keeping them too frequently in prison until they get released, more often than not into  society that is indifferent to their fate.  Sixty percent of offenders return to prison within two years,  an appalling outcome as everyone seems to agree. 
The Sycamore Tree course run by Prison Fellowship, is about something quite different, an idea that is gradually gaining ground in this country - Restorative Justice.    
A restorative approach focuses on harm done, looks at the needs of those harmed and asks who is responsible for meeting those needs.  A restorative approach allows us to look at the full impact of crime,  at victims and communities affected by crime. But it also allows us to consider the offender and his family - who are all affected by the crime and by the offender's criminal behaviour. This is the basis for Prison Fellowship's Sycamore Tree course in which I took part at HMP Gartree recently as a "facilitator" . 
We began with an "icebreasker" by asking the 22 participants to introduce themselves and say why they wanted to join the course and to talk about the greatest influence on their lives ( for most of the men that was their mother). 
Then we turned to Story of Zacceus ( Zac)  from  St. Luke's Gospel.  The tax collector who had exploited his wretched "customers" on behalf of the Romans for many years.  Zac, a small man, climbed the sycamore tree to see Jesus who was visiting Jericho and ended up giving supper to Jesus, turning his life around. Giving half his assets o the poor and to anyone hwom he had cheated he restored fourfold. 
Although our first example of restorative justice was a biblical one, the Sycamore Tree course is not a  missionary exercise.  There were Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists on the course, and some no doubt of no faith ( I didn't ask!)  We wanted to get the men thinking about Zac's mind set.  What sort of man was he ?  What did people think of him?  We asked them to put themselves in Zac's  mindset.   Big man in a small world, throwing his weight around,  but actually probably lonely and isolated. 
And how did his behaviour affect others those whom he had cheated ?  What was the ripple ipple effect of Zac's actions
We showed short documentary films about Restorative Justice  victim-offender meeting : making amends by putting something back.
At another session we took up the theme of taking responsibility for one's actions  This was the session where the men were introduced to Lynn and Mick a middle aged couple whose son had been murdered in a street robbery in Liverpool. . They spoke of the shock, the emotional pain and the lasting effect of that crime on them and their community.  But they also spoke of their forgiveness, as Christians,  for the men who had killed their son. It was an enormously powerful message. 
We discussed repentance and restoration, epitomised in a short film entitled "The Woolf Within"  about an actual serial burglar, called Woolf,  who had been surprised during a robbery, battered his victim but been caught and sent. to prison where the victim had confronted him in an interview.  Repentance and forgiveness followed and the two are now collaborating in a programme to combat crime. 
Forgiveness,  Lynn and Mick  emphasised, is a struggle.  But it can help greatly to bring closure to the victim,  even if ( as in their case) it does not touch the offender.   The evidence is that victims want offenders to make amends by sorting out their lives. 
And sometimes offenders need to forgive themselves,  as they confront remorse about what they have done. 
These and other issues  are explored in two workbooks which the participants are asked to complete and bring back for comment and marking.  The last section is headed " My Restoration Plan" and asks what obstacles and challenges the offender may come up against in making changes to his life.  It asks also " When I make these changes who will benefit? If I do not make changes who will suffer ?   ( victims and wider community). 
Peer mentors
Literary issues are overcome on the wing. 
Final Session allows the participants to bring family members and in some cases friends to hear what the course has been about.  Lynn and Mick were also there.  The most important  -  but entirely optional - feature  -  is a symbolic act of restitution.  This could be a letter of apology to their parents, to the family of their victims, a poem, a picture or  a piece of art some kind, or whatever they felt they could hand over to express their feelings.  
Before that session some of the men had doubts whether they could not stand up in front of their peers and families and make such an act of repentance and restitution.  My group  consisting of Michael, Richard, Adam, Dan, Abdullah and Zeko all spoke.  It was a deeply moving, and I believe unforgettable ( certainly for me)  experience for everyone, with nervous laughter,  hugs and some tears   
Going through my mind was that verse from Psalm 51  "The sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. "
And here is how over 100 years ago Winston Churchill, as Home Secretary,  put the challenge of the treatment of offenders by our society as a whole:
"The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of civilization in any country.   A calm and dispassionate recognition of the rights of the accused against the state, and even of convicted criminals against the state, a constant heart-searching by all charged with the duty of punishment,  a desire and eagerness to rehabilitate in the world of industry all those who have paid their dues in the hard coinage of punishment,  tireless efforts towards the discovery of regenerating processes,  and an unfaltering faith that there is a treasure,  if you can only find it, in the heart of every man  -  these are the things which in the treatment of crime and criminals mark and measure the stored-up strength of a nation, and are the sign and proof of the living virtue in it."
Sycamore Tree aims to find that treasure in the heart of every particpant. 







How does this become real for the men? We have expounded on a theory but they are in prison and unlikely in practice to be able to meet the victims of their crimes.  Last week we had talked about confession: honesty and taking personal responsibility: it has to be the first step.  From a position of honesty and taking responsibility comes a choice to make changes in life (we talk of that as repentance). In order to demonstrate that repentance the offender try to make amends  -  taking a practical step to make restitution to those affected by his offending behaviour , and that can lead to reconciliation,  personal and relational healing, allowing  broken and damaged lives to be restored ; healing for victims, community and offenders.  Into that potent and powerful process fits the question of forgiveness: it might be extraordinary forgiveness like that demonstrated by Ray and Vi, or it might be forgiveness granted following an offender's repentance, and it might of course be an offender learning to forgive himself.

