Dr. Melissa Jones: "Where Grace and Mercy Meet"

Introduction

In the past month, there have been multiple instances of local crimes being highlighted in various social media outlets in Utah. Such crime story headlines include: “2 Utah teens charged in crime spree, including intentionally hitting a 75-year-old man,” “teen sentenced for hate crime in Sandy, Utah,” “Four teens arrested after attacking a man in sandy park” “Sex offender from Utah charged with child porn possession,” “Woman arrested after a drug-induced crime spree in Roy,” and “Garland Elementary school teacher arrested for sexually abusing students.” In coverage of such crimes, reporters and journalists often describe these offenders as animals or super predators that are cold or devoid of emotion. With the constant bombardment of news on various crimes, and in particular violent crimes, viewers are often left feeling that crime is not only on the rise, but it is skyrocketing locally and across the United States.

To be newsworthy, social events must capture the attention of the viewer/reader and so they have to be rare, timely, or unexpected, or alternatively have some special significance. The majority of crimes do not have these attributes with many being merely attempted crime or crimes that are not serious in nature. Consequently, social media gives us as viewers a very distorted version of crime within an area with a significant bias towards violence.

In reality, the uniform crime report data, which consists of arrest data reported by police agencies annually across the United States, suggests that crime rates for violent, property, and drug-related offenses are overall declining in the United States. In 2018 the number of arrests for juvenile offenders (youth ages 0-17) reached a historic low. There are also many misconceptions around crime and race. Of those youth arrested, males and white youth account for a significant total proportion of arrests. When we consider the rate of offending, Black and Hispanic youth are disproportionately arrested, adjudicated, and are placed in juvenile correctional settings.

What is often distorted and lost in the presentation of crime and victims of crime in the media is a deeper understanding of why the person(s) committed the crime. What are the causes and reasons for the crime? Why was the individual motivated to engage in such a behavior? How and when does the criminal act become rational? How does one’s social environment shape one’s propensity for crime? Such understanding can assist us in addressing the root causes of crime.

As a scholar, much of my research efforts center on understanding the causes and consequences of crime. Today I want to share with each of you some central life lessons and experiences that I have learned working with those who engage in crime that have shaped both the scholar I have become and my daily efforts to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ.

Incarcerated Women

The U.S. rate of incarceration is five to ten times higher than other comparable liberal democracies, and the vast majority of these incarcerated individuals will be released at some point in their lives. In 2020, almost 1.8 million people were held in state or federal prisons and local jails in the United States. While there has been a decline in incarceration in the U.S. in recent years, there has also been a growth in female incarceration. In fact, between 1980 and 2020, the number of incarcerated women increased by more than 475%. 70 to 90% of women have experienced childhood abuse and physical, sexual, or psychological abuse at the hands of their most recent intimate partner within 12 months prior to their incarceration. Most women and girls who offend are victims before they are offenders. Of the women who are incarcerated, 80% are mothers. More than 66% of women in prison report having of mental health disorder, which is twice the percentage of men in prison.

I was very fortunate to have face-to-face interactions with justice-involved women. I vividly remember my very first visit to Mabel Bassett Correctional facility in McCloud, Oklahoma. My PhD advisor was teaching a social inequality class for the Inside-Out prison exchange program, which facilitates dialogues and education across profound social differences—through courses held inside prison, involving students from a higher education setting and incarcerated students. Class was held at the prison once a week for three hours. I was working as teaching assistant. The inside/out class consisted of 15 women who were serving time at Mable Bassett and 15 undergraduate sociology students from the University of Oklahoma. I remember trying to hide how nervous I was the first day we arrived at the facility for class. Before entering the visitor area where the class was to be held, we had to walk through a metal detector, be patted down by an officer, and then be “wanded” by a handheld metal detector. To enter the visitor room, you had to be buzzed in from the control center into a small two-doored room where upon entering the opened door was immediately locked behind you. You then had to wait for the door to be opened in front of you to enter the visitor room. When we entered the room, we saw 15 women dressed in grey prison uniforms. They all looked very nervous and so did the students. These women did not look or act like crazed monsters that are often described or portrayed on TV. Instead, I saw women who could have easily been in one of my college classes; a next-door neighbor; or someone who could be a member of my ward’s relief society. We played an icebreaker that first day where an inside student would take turns discussing with an outside student their favorite food, movies, actors, places they have always wanted to visit, and so on. It was after this first day of class that I had this profound realization that has since remained with me. These women—and in larger terms those who offend—are no different than you or me. The only thing that truly separated us was a choice or series of choices.

Agency is Constrained

We learn in the Book of Mormon that agency is a gift from God. We “are free to choose liberty and eternal life, though the great mediator of men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil…” (2 Nephi 2:27). While each of us are born with the ability to freely choose the act of choosing is considerably more complicated. Sociologists have identified various ways in which agency can be constrained. The circumstances into which we are born can influence our opportunities and life chances. Classism, sexism, racism, homophobia, and other forms of marginalization—both individual and structural—confer disadvantage. What may seem rational to you may not be rational to me and vice-versa given the various sources of constraint and social circumstances that we each can face.

Criminologists have also identified structural and individual factors that can impact one’s choice or risk of engaging in crime. Individuals who come from high crime neighborhoods with economic deprivation, residential instability, family disruption, or who live in neighborhoods that are near high crime/economically deprived communities are at an increased risk of offending. Research also suggests that adolescents with certain traits are more likely to engage in crime. One such trait is low self-control, which is having short-term outlooks that value immediate benefits and generally fail to consider the cost of one’s actions. Moreover, adolescents who are exposed to various stressful life events, reside in chaotic or abusive homes, associate with others who engage in crime, or are labeled delinquent by their peers are also at an increased risk of engaging in delinquency.

My research on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), similarly, has identified how exposure to traumatic events can shape life chances and outcomes, including the likelihood of engaging in crime. My interest in adverse childhood experiences stems from my own experience with adversity as child. Adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood (0-17 years). These events encompass not only distressing acts such as sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, and physical and emotional neglect of a child, but also witnessing violence at home, parent’s mental health problems, parental separation or divorce, parental incarceration, and substance use problems in the home. ACEs have direct effects on the immunological, metabolic, and endocrine systems, as well as indirect effects through stress-related hormones that affect cognitive, social, and emotional development. These effects can significantly influence a person’s ability to regulate his or her emotions, reasoning, and behaviors. Moreover, toxic stress can occur when a child experiences strong, frequent, and/or prolonged adversity. When stress responses remain active, fight, flight, or freeze responses often occur to relieve this stress. Essentially, we have a lot of children whose brains are wired for survival. My own research with Dr. Hayley Pierce has shown that repeated and prolonged exposure to ACEs in the first five years can be particularly damaging to children and youth. In a series of studies, we have found that children who are exposed to multiple ACEs by five years old have greater deficits in self-control, social skills, and positive functioning during adolescence than children who have experienced no ACEs and are significantly more likely to associate with delinquent peers, suffer from psychological distress, and engage in delinquency than children with no ACEs.

ACE exposure can also be intergenerational. When children who are exposed to ACEs grow up, if their ACEs remain unaddressed, they are vulnerable to repeating these patterns with their own children. I often reflect on how this pattern was repeated in my own family. Both my mother and my father experienced multiple ACEs during childhood. Each of them brought their unaddressed ACEs to their marriage and coped with their trauma in unhealthy ways, including engaging in relationship violence and substance use. Their trauma shaped the way they parented and engaged with their children. I have seen how this intergenerational transmission of ACEs has influenced the health and coping behaviors of me and my two sisters. We each struggle with various mental health issues, such as anxiety, depression, post traumatic stress, and insomnia. One of my sisters has struggled with illicit drug use. I have also seen that for some of my young nieces and nephews that this pattern is persisting. Friends, agency can be constrained. When we come to understand that the situations and circumstances that we are born into can shape and influence the opportunities we have and the choices we make, we can deepen our ability to have empathy, compassion, and love for others.

Us vs. Them: The Process of Othering

We each face different degrees of constraints on our agency. Yet, we are quick to judge those who respond in ways that we view as incorrect or unethical. Our judgement can often give way to deep seeded beliefs, such as “they are not like me” or “they are not one of us.” During one of the semesters that I served as a teaching assistant for the inside/out class, we had the opportunity to take a tour of the prison. We spent about 45 minutes meeting with the assistant warden and several guards of the facility going over the rules. We were instructed not to engage with the “inmates,” which included not speaking to the women or even acknowledging them in anyway. We were told such behaviors could get us removed from the tour. As we walked through the yard, the medical wing, the pods where the women lived, and the chapel, many women came up to the group and said hi and would complement students on their clothing and shoes. I remember distinctly two women who came up to greet us and then with despair remarked, “They won’t even look at us.” At that very moment, my heart broke. It suddenly dawned on me that this tour painfully resembled a trip to the zoo. Here are the wild and exotic animals in their controlled habitat. Please “don’t touch” or “feed the animals.” We were not only always supervised, but even admittance into the facility required adhering to a strict dress code policy. The word that comes to mind to describe this experience is dehumanizing.

How often are groups of people categorized, stigmatized, and then treated differently according to perceived differences, such as ethnicity, race, religion, gender, and sexual orientation? According to Ervin Goffman (1963:3), stigma is an attribute that extensively discredits an individual, reducing him or her “from a whole and usual person to a tainted discounted one.” By this definition, a person with a stigma may be viewed as not quite human (Goffman, 1963:5). Stigma can substantially affect the way people think and feel about themselves, as well as how they expect to be treated by others in their environment. How are those who engage in crime often othered or stigmatized? Through the impacts of social media and political climate, society has developed negative and unhelpful views of those who engage in crime as dishonest, dangerous, unintelligent, and untreatable. These sorts of negative views are often applied to all offenders as a homogenous group, believing most are strangers, dangerous, and unpredictable.

This process of stigmatization and othering sets the stage for discrimination or persecution by reducing empathy and preventing genuine dialogue. We covenant at baptism that we will bear other’s burdens, that they may be light; mourn with those who mourn; and comfort those in need of comfort. We are not asked to only mourn or comfort those who look, think, or act just like us. We are commanded to do this for all of God’s children. Othering prevents us from becoming true disciples of Christ. It is through the process of seeing one another as children of God that we can begin to root out othering from our lives. In his April 2021 address, Elder Dale G. Renlund, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, taught “we will be judged not so much by what we say, but how we treat the vulnerable and disadvantaged.” Friends, from both my scholarly pursuits of understanding the etiology of crime and my interactions with members of this population, the majority of those who engage in crime are vulnerable and disadvantaged. As we strive to understand the circumstances of those who break the law, we can become more empathetic and compassionate individuals. Changing the othering and stigmatizing narratives of those who offend starts with you.

The Power of the Atonement

Some of my research efforts have focused on understanding the lives of justice-involved women. I have examined, in particular, how women’s pathways toward crime may be different than their male counterparts. I had the opportunity in 2017 to conduct 20 in-depth interviews with women who were serving time in prison for violent crimes in the state of Oklahoma. This was a very eye-opening experience for me. There were many days where I drove the hour from the facility to my home sobbing. The women’s stories were heartbreaking. Many of these women grew up in very chaotic and abusive homes. These abusive and chaotic experiences continued into their intimate relationships. Most of the women reported difficulties with low self-esteem, depression, anxiety, fear, self-harm, as well as the use of alcohol or illicit drugs to help cope with their traumatic and abusive experiences. A significant proportion of the women I interviewed were serving time for 1st degree murder for killing an abusive intimate partner or for hiring someone else to kill their abusive partner because they felt they had no other way of escaping the relationship.

Today I want to highlight one specific interview. Shelby, a 48-year-old Native American woman, was serving time for 2nd degree murder for killing her husband. Second degree murder is generally defined as intentional murder that lacks premeditation. Shelby grew up in a very abusive home environment. Her father abused her physically and sexually. As a young teenager, Shelby tried to kill herself and used drugs and alcohol to cope with the abuse she sustained from her father. Her mother was often admitted to the hospital for injuries sustained from her father’s abuse. Shelby recalled as a child thinking she never wanted to be in a relationship with a man like her father. To escape her abusive home environment, she started living with a boyfriend at age 15 and became pregnant. They later married and remained in a relationship for three years. Shelby characterized her marriage as very abusive. After ending her marriage, she persisted in and out of abusive intimate relationships for several years. She later met Brian, for whom she was currently serving time for murdering. Brian was also very abusive to Shelby. While hearing the details she shared of these various life events was devastating, it was Shelby’s comments at the end of the interview that has to this day remained with me. Upon completion of the interview questions, Shelby looked sincerely into my eyes with tears streaming down her face and asked, “Melissa, will God ever forgive me for what I’ve done?” I cannot fully describe the flood of emotions I had in that moment in the visitor area of the prison. It was in that moment with tears streaming down my face that I said, “I know that he will.”

In multiple instances in the Book of Mormon the phase “infinite atonement” or “infinite sacrifice” is used to refer to the atonement of Jesus Christ. The Savior’s atoning sacrifice is unbound by time—it applies retroactively and prospectively, is infinite for all of God’s children, it’s infinite in not only who it covers, but the sins or transgressions that are covered, and is infinite in love. Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we receive grace and mercy. Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf, in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, defined the grace of God as "the divine assistance and endowment of strength by which we grow from the flawed and limited beings we are now into exalted beings of truth and light, until [we are] glorified in truth and [know] all things.” Mercy is the spirit of compassion, tenderness, and forgiveness that the Lord extends despite our sins. Because we are all imperfect and fall short of the glory of God, we are all in need of grace and mercy. It is where grace and mercy meet that we can experience the true and pure love of our Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ. Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, said, “True love lasts forever. It is eternally patient and forgiving. It believes, hopes, and endures all things. This is the love our Heavenly Father bears for us.” We all need their true and lasting love.

As we strive to become more like our Savior Jesus Christ, we must extend this same love through grace and mercy towards others. We are each more than the worst thing we’ve ever done. Yet, why do many of us often struggle to extend the very grace and mercy we seek to others, including those who break the law? Is there this ingrained belief that some acts are simply unforgiveable? Are there some people that are seen as undeserving of mercy or compassion? Are people incapable of change? If you are someone who answers yes to any of these questions, I urge you to deepen your understanding of the enabling power of the Atonement. It is up to God to forgive whom He will Forgive, but he commands us to forgive everyone (also see Matthew 18:21-22). President Boyd K. Packer of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said, “Save for the exception of the very few who defect to perdition, there is no habit, no addiction, no rebellion, no transgression, no apostasy, no crime exempted from the promise of complete forgiveness. That is the promise of the Atonement of Christ.”

I urge you to study the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Dieter F. Uchtdorf taught “To follow Christ is to learn from His Character. As spirit children of our Heavenly Father, we do have the potential to incorporate Christlike attributes into our character. The Savior invites us to learn His gospel by living his teachings.” The Savior spent his life ministering to the poor in spirit and the downtrodden. The Savior said in 3rd Nephi 27:27 “Therefore, what manner of men ought ye be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am.” Friends, the worth of a person’s soul should not be diminished by their crime. A person’s crime should not diminish their ability to be extended mercy and grace.

Tad R. Callister, who served in the Presidency of the Seventy, said, “The Savior was no ivory tower observer, no behind-the-line captain… The Savior was a participant, a player, who not only understood our plight intellectually, but he felt our wounds because they became his wounds." To truly understand the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned, we must feel their wounds. Their wounds must become our wounds. We are also in many ways a part of their wounds. We shape the very institutions and the processes that both inflict these wounds and can help heal them. If we allow ourselves to become disconnected from those who stand in need of love and comfort, how are we able to be His hands? I urge you to feel other’s wounds and to let them become your wounds. I firmly believe this is how we can possess the true and pure love of Christ, which is the highest, noblest, and strongest kind of love.

I testify to you that our Heavenly Father and our Savior Jesus Christ love Shelby and those who are disfavored, accused, and incarcerated as much as they love any of us. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are the only ones who can perfectly judge someone based on their situation, actions, and desires. That perfect judgement will surely take into consideration circumstances people are born into that make engaging in crime more likely, such as generational poverty and ACEs. Many of those who are incarcerated are trying to change and rebuild their lives. They need our love and help. It is my sincere hope and prayer that when you hear or read of crimes in the media, that your first response will not be to pass judgement or condemn. Instead, I hope that you will ask yourself why. I bear my witness that it is where grace and mercy meet that we can feel the true and pure love of Christ. Each of us must strive to love as He loves with unfailing compassion, patience, and mercy. It is through having true love for all of God’s children that can become more like Jesus Christ. It is my sincere prayer that each of us will love and care more deeply for the vulnerable and disadvantaged. In the sacred name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, Amen.