Source: (1999) In Community forgiveness and restorative justice: Essays from the criminal justice system and the peace movement, ed. Robert D. Enright, 12-16. Issue 8 of The World of Forgiveness 2 (May). Madison, Wisconsin: International Forgiveness Institute.
Formerly the supervisor of a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program in a state prison in Ohio, Nichols maintains that prisons do a mediocre to poor job in terms of rehabilitation and correction. Prisons simply hold convicted offenders for a period of time and offer little or no resources for change. In this context, Nichols asks what forgiveness means for those in prison. It means, according to Nichols’s dictionary, “to cease to feel resentment against…to give up claim to…to grant relief from….â€? Nichols believes that this should work both ways – from society to the inmate, and from the inmate to society.
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