Organized by Quaker lobbying group Friends Committee on National Legislation, the event featured several black religious leaders from Lynchburg and statewide who spoke out about how mass incarceration has affected their communities.

With a particular focus on the criminal justice system’s effects on people of color, the speakers issued a strong call to action for Goodlatte to use his position as the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to reintroduce and fight for the passing of the Sentencing Reform Act.

First introduced by Lynchburg and Roanoke’s longtime Congressional representative Goodlatte in 2015, the legislation would reduce the mandatory minimum sentences for certain nonviolent repeat drug offenses depending on the circumstances. According to Congress.gov, the bill passed out of committee but has not been brought to a vote.

Reached via email, Goodlatte said he will continue to make criminal justice reform a priority.

“Last Congress, the House Judiciary Committee passed 11 bipartisan bills to reform many aspects of our criminal justice system,” he said in an email. “This Congress, criminal justice reform continues to be a priority for me, and the Committee plans to once again take up this important issue. We are working closely with Democrats and Republicans on the Committee, and following Committee consideration I would like to take the next step and see these bills on the House floor.”

In a letter from the Friends Committee on National Legislation to Goodlatte dated Monday, the group requested Goodlatte’s help towards “comprehensive criminal justice reform.”

“Research and evidence shows us that mandatory minimums do not work and have dramatically worse effects in communities of color,” the letter said. “Moreover, the U.S. Sentencing Commission has reported that about 70 percent of mandatory minimums are imposed on African American and Latino/a individuals. We desperately need comprehensive criminal justice reform that addresses the inequities in every element of the system: sentencing, prisons, and reentry.”

In his remarks, Amazing Grace Outreach Church Pastor Rick Linthicum spoke about his experience being incarcerated prior to becoming a pastor and how generations of young black men are getting caught up in a recurring cycle of incarceration that spans entire families.

“Incarceration affects generations of young men,” Linthicum said, with audience members affirming his words through his speech. “I’m not here to talk about something that I heard; I’m here to talk about something I know about. I knew a young man who was incarcerated with his father and his grandfather. Three generations incarcerated. Locking people up, there’s better solutions than doing that.”

Linthicum cited difficulties young people who have been incarcerated have in breaking out of their patterns of behavior once they have been in prison for decades. According to Linthicum, people who only have been surrounded by their contacts in prison for so long struggle to re-enter society successfully and avoid being re-incarcerated.

Washington, D.C.-based the Rev. Aundreia Alexander, in her speech at Monday’s event, criticized the criminal justice system nationwide as a system that repeatedly “criminalizes black and brown bodies” with mandatory minimums and lifelong stigma for those who are locked up, that limits their achievements and rights after being released.

“What we believe is all people were created by God,” Alexander said. “Every human being has intrinsic worth, and the system we have now is not the criminal justice system. It is a penal system that is predicated on retribution and punishment. Once you connect with that system, you have a life sentence no matter what the situation is. It’s not right.”

According to 2013 research by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and distributed by the Friends Committee on National Legislation at the event, black males ages 18 to 19 were almost 9.5 times more likely than white males of the same age group to be in prison.

Lynchburg pastor James Coleman also addressed the crowd, pleading with faith leaders to engage with their congregations on the issue of mass incarceration in order to “save the mindset of the community” and to fight for systemic reform. 

“The church has a responsibility for the souls of the individuals,” Coleman said. “Our minds, our emotions and our will must be saved individually. But the church also has a responsibility for the soul of the community. If the mindset of the community and the nation is jacked up, if the emotions or the will of the nation is jacked up, then we have to save that also. We have to save the soul of the nation and the souls who are in it.”