“Alligator Alcatraz” and the power of deterrence

My family and I visited Alcatraz Island off the California coast a number of years ago while on vacation. One of the reasons the prison there was considered impervious to escape was that the guards told inmates that the waters surrounding the island were filled with man-eating sharks. (This turns out not to be true, but that’s another story.)

Here we find an example of the purported power of deterrence.

Another is “Alligator Alcatraz,” the immigration detention center built on an airstrip in the Florida Everglades. The center opened this week and was toured by President Trump. The $450 million, one-thousand-bed facility of trailers and tents is the largest of its kind.

Surrounded by the wetlands of the Big Cypress National Preserve next to Everglades National Park, the facility is almost dead center between the east and west coasts of Florida. The Trump administration sees the surrounding wildlife, including alligators and pythons, as a natural barrier stopping migrants from being able to escape.

The nearly twenty-five-thousand-acre site is not pristine wetlands—it’s a one-runway airplane facility called the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport. Environmentalists nonetheless oppose the project because of alleged impacts on wildlife such as the endangered Florida panther. Immigration advocates and Democrats similarly oppose Alligator Alcatraz because they claim it is deliberately cruel to detainees.

When deterrence doesn’t work

Deterrence is just one way societies attempt to prevent crime and respond to criminals. The others:

• Retribution: repaying a person’s bad deeds in kind
• Incapacitation: incarcerating them
• Rehabilitation: helping them to change.

Criminologists say deterrence is ineffective because most people don’t expect to be caught if they break the law, and don’t know what their punishment will be if they are caught. This, however, would not seem to be a problem with Alligator Alcatraz—the detainees are already “caught” and know the punishment, in the form of alligators and snakes, if they try to escape.

The swamp around the center would seem to function like a moat around a castle, but in reverse—rather than keeping people out, it is intended to keep people in.

Whatever comes of the Florida detention center, we can focus on a spiritual principle that transcends this debate and applies to all of us, all of the time.

Termites of the soul

The Bible emphatically teaches that “all wrongdoing is sin” (1 John 5:17) and that “sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.” (James 1:15) As Paul famously warned, “The wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) If a lost person does not repent of their sin and turn to Christ as Savior, this death becomes eternal. (Revelation 20:15)

Like alligators and snakes we do not see until they attack, the consequences of sin are unseen until they manifest themselves in our lives. They are like termites that crawl into houses from the soil and damage them from within. By the time their presence is visible, the consequences are devastating.

Or consider cancer as another analogy: it always starts small and grows, eventually manifesting as tumors and otherwise disrupting our bodies. By that time, the disease is already far progressed.

This is why the old maxim bears repeating: Sin will always take you further than you wanted to go, keep you longer than you wanted to stay, and cost you more than you wanted to pay.

However, convincing a secularized culture that there are alligators and snakes waiting for their next sin is a tall order. Many do not believe “sin” exists to begin with. Others believe the lie that its consequences will not apply to them until they do. And then it is often too late to avoid the pain they inevitably bring.

Sinners in the hands of an angry God?

There was a day when preachers could warn sinners of their sins and gain a hearing. “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” was one of the most powerful and persuasive sermons of the colonial era, in large part because Jonathan Edwards’ hearers believed both in sins and in an angry God who would punish them.

Today, such talk is dismissed as outdated, irrelevant, judgmental, and even dangerous to our “post-truth” culture.

How then are Bible-believing Christians to help our broken society avoid the swamps that surround our souls?

Paul taught, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Corinthians 2:14) Making things worse, “the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” (2 Corinthians 4:4)

This is why “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12) Consequently, “praying at all times in the Spirit” is vital. (v. 18, my emphasis) “In the Spirit” means “in connection with the Spirit” or under his leading.

He knows the spiritual condition of the person for whom we are praying far better than we can. He knows what they need to hear, see, feel, and experience to be led from the deception of sin to the joy of salvation. He is already working on their hearts right now, convicting them of sin and seeking to draw them to Christ. (cf. John 16:8)

No greater gift we can give

Our job is to pray for them as the Spirit leads us, then be ready to answer our prayers as he leads. 

We are not on trial, seeking to win a verdict for ourselves. Rather, Jesus is on trial, and we are called by the Spirit to the witness stand to testify as he directs us. He alone can win the trial and the soul of the “jury.” 

Our job is to be faithful and obedient.

So, let me ask you to pray right now by name for someone who, to your knowledge, is spiritually lost. Pray for the Spirit to lead your prayers, then intercede as you sense his direction. Ask him to use you to answer your prayers in any way he wishes.

And stay ready to be used.

You and I cannot give our lost friends a greater gift than to pray and work for their eternal salvation.

If they only knew the spiritual alligators and snakes threatening their souls, wouldn’t they agree?