Prison Inmates In NJ Deserve A Second Chance, Clergy Members Plead

NEW JERSEY — A group of priests, rabbis and imams from New Jersey say there’s something their faiths have in common: “forgiveness.” And that life philosophy also extends to people who are trying to get their lives back on track after an encounter with the criminal justice system, they say.

The nonprofit New Jersey Reentry Corporation (NJRC) recently hosted a large group of religious leaders for an interfaith conference at Kean University. At the forum, participants took a closer look at the relationship between “faith and forgiveness,” sharing how their religious beliefs each emphasize second chances for formerly incarcerated people. Watch the video below.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, founder and president of the National Action Network, thanked the NJRC and its chair, former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, for helping to spearhead the conference.

“I wanted to come over and be a part of this, because it’s important,” Sharpton said, adding that people shouldn’t be ashamed of being strong enough to say, ‘I’ve been wronged – but I forgive.’”

Cardinal Joseph Tobin, archbishop of Newark, spoke about his experience advocating for a former federal inmate in Indiana several years ago.

“I thought, what kind of country wants to keep an 80-year-old former bank robber locked up?” Tobin recalled.

“A lack of forgiveness is like drinking poison, hoping the other guy dies,” Tobin added.

“At the very root of who we are, we’re all human beings,” Rabbi Yerachmiel Milstein of Congregation Ishay Yisroel agreed. “I make mistakes. We all make mistakes. That’s what life is about – making mistakes.”

“God’s got enough angels,” Milstein said. “We find redemption in trying to turn our lives around.”

When asked by McGreevey about how to “convert” people to their cause of second chances, Swami Sarvapriyananda, minister of the Vedanta Society of New York, said that people are hardwired to be sympathetic to each other.

“But that wiring is getting short circuited – it doesn’t work – if we lack attention,” Sarvapriyananda added, urging mindfulness about one’s role in the community.

“This is a nation of second chances,” he said.

Imam Khalid Latif, executive director and lead chaplain with the NYU Islamic Center, said that throughout every single page of the Quran, there is a mention in some capacity that forgiveness is the option you want to always take.

“There are people right now who are living incarcerated for things that make no sense,” he continued. “There are people right now who are living in ways that no people should ever have to live.”

“I’ve been in prisons all over the world,” Latif said. “I’ve sat down with grown men who are twice my size – had muscles in places that I didn’t even know people could have muscles – and they’re in tears. And they’ll say you’re the first person who has ever told me that I could have a second chance. This is after years of being incarcerated. How does that make any sense?”

Other speakers at the forum included:

• Father Greg Boyle, Author, Founder, Homeboy Industries
• Sister Simone Campbell, Former Director, Network, Presidential Medal of Freedom
• Speaker Craig Coughlin, New Jersey General Assembly
• Bishop Donald Hilliard, Jr., Senior Pastor, Cathedral International
• Reverend Raul Ruiz, President, New Jersey Coalition of Latino Pastors and Ministers
• Reverend Dr. DeForest Soaries, Pastor Emeritus, First Baptist Lincoln Gardens
• Reverend Dr. LaKeesha Walrond, President, New York School of Theology

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