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Reconciled with Whom? Wrong Criminals, Wrong Goal

Morris, Ruth
June 4, 2015

Source: (1999) Paper presented at Reconciling and Restoring Relationships-A Responsibility for All Christians. ICCPPC World Congress. Mexico City. 13 September.

In this radical analysis of crime and response to crime, Ruth Morris maintains that the criminal justice system as it exists is a costly, unjust, immoral failure. More succinctly, she sees the system as wrong because it has the wrong goal and it puts the wrong people in the dock. It has the wrong goal-namely, revenge. And it puts the wrong people in the dock – namely, the marginalized. She then applies her analysis to the world’s prisons, the Christian responsibility to reconcile and restore relationships, and pastoral work within the penal system.

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