Reforming Criminal Justice: A Christian Proposal

"This book argues that, for the Christian, the driving principle underlying any reformation of our criminal justice system is found in Jesus Christ's command to love our neighbors as ourselves. The conundrum is that when it comes to criminal justice, we have two "neighbors": the victim and the perpetrator. When forming or reforming a criminal justice system, Scripture demands that we love both our neighbors who are crime victims as well as our neighbors accused of being crime perpetrators, and it provides several guideposts (accuracy, proportionality, and impartiality) for doing so. This book explains how various aspects of the criminal justice system function in practice and asks whether the system we have chosen is the one you would choose if you had to live with it. Or stated another way: Does the design and operation of American criminal justice reflect Christian love? As the cause of criminal justice reform and racial justice has gained momentum in recent years, Christians more than ever need the tools to be meaningful participants in the reform debate. Yet no Christian book currently exists on that topic. This book seeks to fill that gap, exploring both how the Scriptures speak to the issue of criminal justice and how the modern American justice system measures up to that biblical ideal"--