I recently wrote a recommendation for one of my best friends. Not for a job, not for LinkedIn, not for a sweet spot at some Ivy League college nor for an elite daycare. But to finally have all of his criminal records expunged.

People will argue that he should not have them removed, that he must pay his debt to society, that he is a bad man and deserves no shot at a normal life. These people have the Devil in them.

I don’t just say this as one who is hurt by their demonization of my good friend. I say this as one who believes that their tongue is set on fire by hell itself – that what they represent is to steal, kill, and destroy life – that ultimately the perspective they espouse is from the Father of Lies.

My friend/brother/sometimes-sparring-partner/secret-lover David Henson recently said that he doesn’t believe in a being called Satan, but that Satan is a scapegoat for the collective sins of humanity. I do believe in spiritual beings, good and evil and – like in the Buffyverse – a whole lot in between. But I also think that much of these beings are devils of our own making. We place upon them our own very worst tendencies.

The Devil made us do it.

The Devil makes us imprison entire populations for measly crimes. For, roughly, the crime of being poor, the infraction of being born “losers.” We don’t want to have to deal with the ugliness of the fear that “There I go but for the grace of God” and the terror of proximity to ugliness. So we make a hell and we put those who confound us and trouble our conscience there. They remind us what it means to be poor; they must be removed, marginalized, swept up, and locked away.

So we lock them up for nothing, for something, for violence or for relaxing, but largely for being poor and colored. Those who are in need of fixing are combined with those who are in need of an equal shake at a living wage job. In this cocktail, the worst gets to the most of them – schemes are implanted and dreams are haunted.

The devil gets to them.

from the Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums via flickr

And they do their time, waste their time, sitting, lifting weights, smoking, staring, reading, thinking, sulking. They sleep when they’re told. They may watch basketball, or perhaps the news, play pick-up games, whistle at visitors that walk by on their way to talk to their lovers and family, talk to their own lovers and children through a public phone. But mostly they spend inconsiderate and immense hours and days and years – often in solitude, sometimes in nothing but solitude, sometimes with the simplest of communication, but mostly alone.

It’s a dark, lonely, wretched, demonic time, bereft of the treatment that is given to a child of God, one made in God’s own image.

Depression sets in, because no one was made to psychologically or spiritually withstand that type of treatment. No one is supposed to be on the defensive at every single moment of life – waking or unwaking.

And they get tossed from imprisonment back to normal life – but not really. They can’t find living wage jobs; they can’t find decent housing; they can’t find respect. There’s a good chance they may have picked up some bad habits while locked up. And if they haven’t, the perception is there. And if they have, regardless of whether or not they practice them or would ever practice them, we don’t want their kind in our building, workspace, our houses of worship, or near our children. Whether or not they actually pose a risk, they carry the Mark of the Beast – the Mark of the Worst.

And so two-thirds of released convicts end back up in prison within three years.

We talk of redemption. We aren’t willing to live by it. It’s much cheaper and easier to demonize.

In many states, these same ex-cons are not allowed to vote and therefore have no say in their predicament. I guess we fear that they may overtake us so-called law-abiders and replace the US dollar with a cigarette-based currency. Or, that they may push for leniency toward ex-felons.

Heaven forbid.

Because then maybe the streets may not be filled with them. Homeless, vagabonds, no pillows for their heads. People like my friend, whose family was not able to take him in for any extended period of time, who could not find a quality job with his record, nor with his injuries find any type of job that did not include further injuring himself. Being a Jack of All Trades was not adequate enough for him, not with him being a criminal.

So he was forced to live on the streets. It got better because Jesus found him. But even Jesus needs some help.

When I’m able to, maybe I’ll share his testimony. The pertinent part of it being, however, how extraordinary it is – not necessarily because it has to be, but because such are the ways of how we treat our convicts, our homeless, our poor, our “criminal class”. It is such that only extraordinary people with extraordinary energy and extraordinary skills and who happen to find themselves in extraordinary circumstances are able to rise above the fate of the ex-con, particularly the ex-con of color.

I know that I couldn’t make it to the next level. Not with watching my back every moment, not with sleeping with one eye opened, not with constant harassment from cops, not with constant fights over scraps. And not with the daily torment of battling the elements, the weather, animals, and stares and distances that the home-privileged build between ourselves and those with the stench of homelessness – wary that they will beg us, make us feel uncomfortable for having any degree of comfort, and they are wary of our wariness of them and the spaces they find themselves in.

My experience with the homeless has taught me that madness sets in, because no one was made to withstand this type of treatment. Not psychologically, spiritually or physically  No one should be on the defensive at every single moment of life – waking or unwaking.

It’s demonic.