"I Was in Prison, and You Visited Me"

Inmates' families are paying $1,000 monthly phone bills thanks to profiteering by state corrections departments and telephone companies, the Christian Science Monitor reports.

These public officials and corporate executives would do well to remember the words of Jesus: "I was in prison, and you visited me." (Matthew 25:36) Contact with loved ones is a basic human need, even for those who have done great wrong. And treating others as you would have them treat you means supplying such basic needs -- even if you're doing it less out of personal beneficence and more out of a duty to society. (After all, can society afford to cut inmates off from the very family structures that may hold the key to rehabilitating them and preventing recidivism?)

Jesus mentioned prison visits in perhaps the most weighty context found in Matthew's Gospel: The Final Judgment. Jesus tells about how at that time, he will tell the righteous that they fed him when he was hungry, gave him a drink when he was thirsty, clothed him when he was naked, cared for him when he was sick, and visited him in prison.

The righteous will ask Jesus when they did all these things. And Jesus will reply, "... 'I assure you, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!' " (Matthew 25:40)

Inmates' families are trying to visit their loved ones, at least by phone. It's time for public officials and telephone executives to get out of the way -- and stop charging as much as four times what they charge the less needy.