Source: (2001) Address presented at St. Albans Presbyterian Church, 30 September. Palmerston North, New Zealand: St. Albans Presbyterian Church.
In this message delivered at a church in New Zealand, Father Jim Consedine, prison chaplain and coordinator of Restorative Justice Exchange in New Zealand, asserts that prisons fail on nearly every count. Indeed, the pursuit of a retributive model of criminal justice based largely on punishment and vengeance in the last two centuries is appalling and pernicious in a number of ways. In the face of crime and the failure of retributive criminal justice, Consedine declares that the Church must proclaim the good news of Jesus – the good news of freedom, justice, healing, forgiveness, and reconciliation for both victims and offenders. This, argues Consedine, is Biblical justice, and Biblical justice supports restorative justice.
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